From Four Agent Soup To Functional Foods: Biographies Of Chinese Herbs In Contemporary Taiwan

This thesis concerns the contemporary transformation of Chinese herbs.It is an important development that functional foods have become one of the new forms of Chinese herbs in the contemporary Taiwan.In order to explain this phenomenon, I have taken the 'biography approach of things" as the main methodology applied in this thesis,and chose the Four Agent Soup as the topic of my case study.In the trend of becoming the functional foods,Chinese medicine as both drug and food triggered a controversy over the control of food and drug within the government authorities.The trend of the functional foods production also urged a revision of the Health Food Control Act.The proponents and promoters of traditional Chinese medicine,such as the owners of Chinese medicine stores or factories,have adapted themselves to the trend of the functional foods.The functional foods may have more sophisticated classification between the two opposite poles of food and drug by their presentations.That is,if the presentation of the functional food is like tea bags,people will be inclined to deem it to be food.On the contrary,if it is designed as a tablet,it may be considered as drug.The drinkable functional foods may be considered as a combination of food and drug.Fifth,the duality of the Four Agents Soup as both the drug and the food makes the Four Agents Soup products able to move in-between the line of the drug and the viii food,so that the Four Agents Soup products may disguise as the medication to confuse the consumers.