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The Advantages of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the
Current Medical Field
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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was born in the background of ancient
Chinese ¡°harmony culture¡±. The mainstream of Chinese culture is Confucianism
and Taoism. Whether it is the medium doctrine of the Confucianism, or it is
the idea of the Taoism that everything keeps harmony by holding Yin and
Yang, they all emphasize the harmony.
Under
the guidance of this philosophy, Chinese medicine upholds balancing,
uprighting and eliminating the pathogens as the main principles of treating
diseases and maintaining health, rather than confrontation and killing as
methods to conquer diseases. In the fight against viral diseases, chronic
inflammation, functional disorders, endocrine disorders and other diseases,
TCM plays a good role.
Chinese
medicine puts the occurrence of diseases, climatic changes, environmental
variations, emotional fluctuations, imbalance of diet and life, and the
disorder of sex life together. That is, the so-called Three Pathogens
Theory. This etiology doctrine that is built on the basis of the macro
methodology is entirely different from that of Western medicine which is on
the basis of the microscopic and pathologic anatomy. But it is exactly a
biological, psychological, social and new medical model that Western
medicine is attempting to pursue. While Chinese medicine established its own
system with this medical model about 2000 years ago.
Chinese
medicine doesn¡¯t look up to static anatomy as a starting point for
understanding the diseases and does not rely on detection equipments.
However, TCM relies upon inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry and
pulse-taking to directly experience and study the human dynamic life
information. Also it is based on syndrome differentiation to guide the
disease treatment. This method not only can save a lot of examination fees
for patients, but also can help doctors exchange with patients more closely,
which reflects a real humanistic spirit.
Chinese
medicine stresses ¡°prevention before diseases rather than treating
diseases¡±. This does not simply refer to the medical thought of prevention
before disease onset. More importantly, before the discovery of the
development trend of certain diseases, that is, when patients with symptoms
or not feeling well, without waiting for the disease to be formed, without
waiting for detection of positive results, you can use the medicine to
prevent and treat it. To senile diseases, degenerative diseases, sub-health
state, TCM has positive roles in the prevention and correction.
Chinese
medicine treats diseases mainly with prescription and acupuncture.
Acupuncture is used as a non-medication therapy, whose side effects are
slight in an acknowledged way. Chinese medicine is mainly from the original
medications of nature. Most of them are not only without toxicity or side
effects, but also through processing, especially in accordance with the
principle of ¡°monarch, minister, assistant and envoy¡± combined into a
prescription, TCM upholds "prescription corresponding with the disease¡± as
the basic idea of treatment based on syndrome differentiation, and
¡°balancing, uprighting and eliminating the pathogens¡± as the principle of
applying the prescription to play an integrated role in the body. This way
can cure diseases and rarely cause side effects. TCM never simply combats
poison with poison.
In
short, Western medicine has absolute advantages in the medical fields like
surgery, diagnosis of organic diseases, first aid, prevention of spreading
of epidemic conditions, and life-sustaining activities in the need of modern
science and technology to support. While in the treatment of chronic
inflammation, chronic pains, functional disorders, endocrine disorders,
viral diseases, hyperplastic diseases, degenerative diseases, senile
diseases, commonly-encountered clinical syndromes, sub-health state of the
human body, and difficult health problems, Chinese medicine takes the
unparalleled advantages.
Professor Pengjian
Translated by Dr.Zhu Ming and Yuan yuying
February 3, 2009
