Modern ailments, traditional cure

Cough, cough go away: Ingredients to help alleviate ‘heaty’ cough include dried pei par yip, mulberry leaf (song yip), lo hon koh (Buddha’s fruit), dried Chinese tangerine peel (chan pei), red dates and yuk chuk.

“Although herbs are getting more and more expensive, the number of patients visiting our TCM centre did not dwindle. In fact, it has risen steadily since we started operating seven years ago. We get about 30 to 40 patients each day,” said its deputy principal Lau Hung.

“There is also a small number of Malay and Indian patients. This shows that more people, especially the non-Chinese, are gaining confidence in this field of medicine.”