Channel Tropism

It refers to selective therapeutic effects of a drug on a certain part of the body. That means a drug may exert obvious therapeutic action in a certain channel or several channels, a little or little channels action to other channels. For example, heart channel8s, lung channels, etc.

Channel tropism is based on the theory of viscera, the theory of channels and collaterals according to the particular diseases for which a drug is effective. When human get sick, it may affect the change of interior part of body, the organ of the body, the expression of exterior part will show the interior organ change. Therefore, chinese medicine practitioners can observe the patient’s expression (tongue, face expression), blood pulse, to recognize the illness status of patient.

Channel tropism can be widely understood with the theories of the four properties and five flavours and action of lifting, lowering, floating and sinking of drugs. Different drugs acting on the same channels have different effects owning to their different properties, flavours, and actions.