TCM, a prescription for extinction

“TRADITIONAL Chinese medicine is thousands of years older than its Western counterpart and founded on completely different principles,” writes prolific author Richard Ellis in his latest book, “Tiger Bone and Rhino Horn.” An artist and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, he was gathering information about the threat of extinction of rhinos, tigers and bears in Asia and learned that these critically endangered species continue to be killed for medicinal use of their body parts. “I wanted to sound the alarm,” Ellis states, because “if the necessary steps are not taken quickly, we will lose forever some of the most charismatic animals on earth.”

Traditional Chinese medicine (Ellis calls it TCM) seeks “to correct internal imbalances rather than to treat symptoms alone,” he explains; its holistic approach emphasizes prevention, aiming to sustain or restore bodily harmony, to balance yin and yang. Where Western medicine relies on gradually standardized medications and procedures, TCM remains “a healing art” tailored to each person’s unique needs. While Western medicine developed bacteriology, surgery and synthetic drugs, TCM retained acupuncture and ancient therapies formulated from herbs, vegetables, minerals and at least 1,500 animal species.

Most of these animals are domestic or plentiful. But since almost all must be killed to produce ingredients for TCM, endangered species are particularly vulnerable now. Not only are their native habitats dwindling, crowded by human development and imperiled by pollution and global warming, but demand has also seen a dramatic upswing in the last 20 years. Conservation organizations and some governments are attempting to protect certain animals and to enforce bans on trading them. The law of supply and demand, however, makes rare creatures all the more lucrative to poachers, driving up prices and black-market sales worldwide. Ellis makes a powerful case that the time for change has arrived.

Five species of rhinoceros still exist: three Asian and two African. “Javan and Sumatran rhinos are on the brink of extinction,” he notes. So few black rhinos remain “that many are literally kept under armed guard,” allowed to forage by day then penned at night. White rhino is the only species not critically endangered, but as Asian populations diminish, poaching increases in Africa.

And for what? For rhino horn, which is not ivory but compacted keratin fibers, “the stuff of which hair and fingernails are made, so it would be just as efficacious to drink a potion made of powdered fingernails.” Often misidentified as an aphrodisiac, horn is “used to cure almost everything but impotence.” Many consider rhinos a “walking apothecary,” and some even buy body parts as investments. International trafficking has been illegal since 1973, but rhino horn remains “one of the mainstays of TCM, and its collection has been responsible for the death of tens of thousands of rhinos around the world.”

Ellis recounts similarly dismal figures for tigers -- as well as for leopards and a few other big cats -- and states their bones or other parts “have not been shown to have medicinal value.” Worse, although wearing tiger coats is currently out of favor, eating the meat has become “fashionable” in some places. Overall, however, the biggest threat “is our human desire to transfer the essence of the tiger’s strength and virility to our own bodies.” Despite “cheaper and readily available substitutes for most of the maladies for which tiger bone is claimed to be useful,” poaching, smuggling and even farming tigers continue.

By contrast, an active ingredient in bear bile -- ursodeoxycholic acid -- has been found to provide some benefits. But, Ellis argues, even though bear bile has been used in TCM “for millennia, many Asian doctors agree that it can be replaced with herbal and synthetic alternatives.” The slaughter of wild bears and the terrible conditions at “bear farms,” where captive animals languish in “squeeze cages” until they die of infections and diseases from unsterile collection procedures from their gall bladders, could be ended. For bears, Ellis reports, slow progress is being made.

Of course, many factors contribute to the hazards these animals face. The endangered species list grows daily, as do efforts to right our many wrongs. Ellis’ goal -- to sound the alarm -- has been met. His book eloquently educates us that individuals can make a difference today. We each can help delay, and perhaps prevent, the extinction of rhinos, tigers and bears by insisting on replacements.

Irene Wanner is a critic and the author of “Sailing to Corinth.”