Modern Chinese Use of Tcm as Seen on a Student Elective

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Jones ◽  
Stuart Murray
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Elective Period ◽  
Medical University

The authors, medical students of Bristol University, spent their elective period of almost six weeks during September and October 1993 in the Acupuncture Department of the First Teaching Hospital of Beijing Medical University. The aim of the elective was to see traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in clinical practice, especially in conjunction with western medicine, and to try to learn the fundamentals of the theory and practice of TCM. This report details the teaching received and discusses the modern Chinese attitudes to medical treatment and TCM in particular.

Comprehension of the Unique Characteristics of Traditional Chinese Medicine

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (02) ◽  
pp. 231-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevenson Xutian ◽  
Dongyi Cao ◽  
JoAnn Wozniak ◽  
John Junion ◽  
Johanne Boisvert
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Human History ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Methodological Aspects

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has made great contributions to human history, especially in China, as has been recorded for thousands of years. The characteristics of TCM in both theory and practice make it different from Conventional Western Medicine (CWM). The characteristics of TCM include phenomenological, philosophical, and methodological aspects. This paper briefly discusses some historical turning points and innovations in TCM development in China, explores human body enigmas such as the heart, compares different aspects of TCM and CWM, and identifies the unique characteristics of TCM treatment, as compared to other medical systems.

scholarly journals 在技術烏托邦的彼岸: 中西醫學再評價

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Ruiping FAN
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Scientific Medicine ◽  
Aim Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Medical Theory

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.本文試圖綜合本期各篇文章的主要觀點，依據“目的”、“體驗”和“價值”三條線索來對傳統中醫和現代西醫做一初步的評價。由於醫學的內在目的在於防治疾病、維護健康，而不是追求真理、認識世界，因而中醫與西醫都可以發揮作用，現代化研究與傳統式探索也可以並行不諱，只要有助於醫學的目的即可。此外，西方醫學從傳統走向現代的過程，乃是從重視病人的親身感受轉向注重病理解剖事實的過程，而中醫學體系提供了一種不同的臨床現象學。最後，醫學是負荷看價值和意識形態的人類活動，應當超越當前的技術烏托邦傾向，成為良好生活方式的一個和諧部分。The contemporary world is characteristic of science-fetishism and technological utopia. Every social issue is explored in the name of science, and all difficult problems are to be resolved by renovated technologies. This is even more so in modern China than in the West. The people attempt to modernize their lives in all respects. For many of them, everything old needs to be weighed on a modern scientific scale and anything unscientific must be rejected. This constitutes the context in which traditional Chinese medicine is generally evaluated. This essay argues that this context is misleading. It intends to reevaluate traditional Chinese versus modern Western medicine in consideration of the internal aim of medicine, patients, experiences, and ideologies and values.There has been a long-standing debate in China in this century regarding whether or not traditional Chinese medicine is a science. Both sides of the debate, ironically, agree that if traditional Chinese medicine is not a science, it should be abandoned. However, this debate is non-sensical. Medicine as medicine, whether it is a traditional medicine or a modern medicine, is not a science. Medicine is not a science because its internal aim differs from the aim of science. While the internal aim of science can be identified as pursuing truth and knowing the world, the internal aim of medicine consists in maintaining health as well as treating and preventing diseases. Undoubtedly, modern Western medicine is scientific. Its theories and practices are based upon typical modern sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology. But medicine as medicine does not have to be scientific. Given the internal aim of medicine, as long as a practice or method contributes to the treatment of disease or the promotion of health, it is legitimate. The existence of varieties of non-scientific alternative medicine and faith medicine in the US where modern science and technology are most advanced, is a good example of this. To put it in a famous Chinese saying, "whether it is a white cat or a black cat, as long as it catchesthe mouse, it is a good cat."No one can deny the tremendous achievements that modern scientific medicine has made in fighting diseases. However, focused on a technologized anatomico-pathologic view of the body and diseases, contemporary medicine discounts the significance of patient complaints and it is naturally easy to lose sight of the non-technological aspects of medical practice, especially the experience of the sick person. Traditional Chinese medical theory and practice provide a heuristic alternative. By viewing the essence of illness as symptom-complex rather than anatomico-pathological lesion, by identifying imbalanced climate and emotional factors rather than disease entities as the sources of illnesses, by using ordinary contacts rather than complicated lab and mechanical investigations as medical examining tools, by focusing on the experience of being sick rather than on pathological anatomy, by following balancing rather than curing as the treatment principle, and by emphasizing prevention rather than treatment, traditionalChinese medicine offers a systematic medical phenomenological system in which a patient’s life experience and intuitive knowledge of the body is the center of clinical practice.Finally, medical theory and practice are value-laden. "Our ideologies and expectations concerning the world move us to select certain states as illnesses because of our judgment as to what is dysfunctional or a deformity and to select certain causal sequences,etiological patterns, as being of interest to us because they are bound to groups of phenomena we identify as illnesses" (Engelhardt). Our ideologies and expectations also move us to select certain modes of medicine and therapeutic methods as most useful and promising because of our judgments about the appropriateness and efficacy of practical instruments. Accordingly, practicing and accepting medicine is part of a way of life. As people accept different value systems and life expectations, they must be careful about what medicine and technology they want to accept and develop. We must reflect on the contemporary ideology of technological utopia that intends to resolve all problems by newly developed complicated technologies. Not all conflicts and tensions of life can be resolved by technologies. What is worse, the overwhelmingly powerful incentive to develop high tech medicine in the third-world countries would drain on their scarce health care resources, which would significantly harm most people in those countries.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 15 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Acupuncture in a Rehabilitation Setting: Wu Visits Wuhan

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Wu
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
State Of Health ◽  
Rehabilitation Unit ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Elective Period

This paper reports the personal experiences encountered by the author (a medical student) on an elective period at a large rehabilitation unit of Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, China. The author had the opportunity to learn the principles of traditional Chinese medicine and practise blunt needling under careful supervision. This elective experience illustrated, for the author, how acupuncture can be used alongside western medicine to restore patients to their optimum state of health.

Cognition Research and Constitutional Classification in Chinese Medicine

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (04) ◽  
pp. 651-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji Wang ◽  
Yingshuai Li ◽  
Cheng Ni ◽  
Huimin Zhang ◽  
Lingru Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Research Progress ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Health Control ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Dynamic View ◽  
Recent Research Progress

In the Western medicine system, scholars have explained individual differences in terms of behaviour and thinking, leading to the emergence of various classification theories on individual differences. Traditional Chinese medicine has long observed human constitutions. Modern Chinese medicine studies have also involved study of human constitutions; however, differences exist in the ways traditional and modern Chinese medicine explore individual constitutions. In the late 1970s, the constitutional theory of Chinese medicine was proposed. This theory takes a global and dynamic view of human differences (e.g., the shape of the human body, function, psychology, and other characteristics) based on arguments from traditional Chinese medicine. The establishment of a standard for classifying constitutions into nine modules was critical for clinical application of this theory. In this review, we describe the history and recent research progress of this theory, and compare it with related studies in the western medicine system. Several research methods, including philology, informatics, epidemiology, and molecular biology, in classifying constitutions used in the constitutional theory of Chinese medicine were discussed. In summary, this constitutional theory of Chinese medicine can be used in clinical practice and would contribute to health control of patients.

Phytochemistry, Pharmacological Activities, Toxicity and Clinical Application of Momordica cochinchinensis

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 715-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai-Yue Lan ◽  
Bin Zhao ◽  
Yu-Li Shen ◽  
Xiao-Qin Li ◽  
Su-Juan Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Clinical Application ◽  
Chemical Constituents ◽  
Folk Medicine ◽  
Pharmacological Activities ◽  
Pharmacological Studies ◽  
Momordica Cochinchinensis

Momordica cochinchinensis (Lour.) Spreng (M. cochinchinensis) is a deciduous vine that grows in Southeast Asia. It is known as gac in Vietnam and as Red Melon in English. Gac is reputed to be extremely benificial for health and has been widely used as food and folk medicine in Southeast Asia. In China, the seed of M. cochinchinensis (Chinese name: Mu biezi) is used as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the treatment of various diseases. More than 60 chemical constituents have been isolated from M. cochinchinensis. Modern pharmacological studies and clinical practice demonstrate that some chemical constituents of M. cochinchinensis possess wide pharmacological activities, such as anti-tumor, anti-oxidation, anti-inflammatory, etc. This paper reviews the phytochemistry, pharmacological activities, toxicity, and clinical application of M. cochinchinensis, aiming to bring new insights into further research and application of this ancient herb.

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