Whole-istic medicine: being treated the traditional Chinese way

http://www.japantimes.co.jp

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Thanks to modern medicine, many diseases that were fatal a few
decades ago can now be cured. And with the decoding of the human
genome, Western medicine is on the verge of taking another mighty
leap forward.

A small section of the "raw drugs" used in Chinese medicine,
including
rams' horns, deer antlers, soft-shelled turtles, geckos, tiger bones
and
pangolin (scaly anteater).

Despite all this, more and more people are questioning the very basis
of
all-mighty modern medicine. Whether they feel uneasy about consuming
too many drugs, or fear the side effects, many patients -- and their
doctors -- are looking for other ways to go.

From reflexology to aromatherapy, from chiropractic to herbal
remedies, "complementary" and "alternative" medicine is in the
ascendant, with national institutions having been established
recently in
both the United States and Japan -- in 1998 and 2000 respectively.

However, there's nothing at all modern about one of the leading forms
of "alternative" medicine -- and neither is it regarded as
alternative by
the millions to whom it is still the primary form of medicine. In
fact, with
a history of more than 2,000 years, Chinese medicine is about as
mainstream as it gets -- though not until recently outside its
country of
origin.

"People have finally begun to realize that Western medicine has its
limits," says journalist Katsuichi Honda. "I know I have, which is
why I
started going to a doctor of Chinese medicine."

Honda was well into his 50s when he began to feel that something was
wrong with his heart. He went to a clinic where they put him on a 24-
hour electrocardiogram. After he showed three doctors the results,
they
all said the same thing -- he had a type of arrhythmia and "there was
nothing to worry about."

But Honda was skeptical. Medical misjudgments years before had left a
scar of distrust that never healed.

In his 1998 book "Harukanaru Toyoigaku-e (To the Far Away World of
Oriental Medicine)," Honda recounts his experiences with modern
medicine and his encounter with Chinese medicine. He explains how,
when he was 7, his 2-year-old sister caught children's dysentery and
died after a doctor gave the wrong advice.


"He told my parents not to give her any liquid, which we didn't know
at
that time was wrong," says Honda. "With children's dysentery, you are
supposed to give liquid, not withhold it. This error cost my sister
her
life."

Then, a few years after that, Honda himself fell victim to medical
misjudgment -- not just by one doctor, but by three -- after he cut
his
leg deeply while playing outside in the fields. The first two doctors
said
that the cut was not serious, but his pain was so severe and his
temperature was so high that he was taken for a third opinion.

"That third doctor was the worst of them all," says Honda. "He just
glanced at my leg and said I had periostitis. Then he operated on me,
actually cutting into my healthy bone.

"Later, as my symptoms continued, a nurse found a piece of wood in my
leg, which was the cause of it all."

Unsurprisingly, Honda became wary of doctors at a young age. So,
when the three physicians told him not to worry about his heart, he
did
what he thought was best -- and consulted a doctor of Chinese
medicine who practiced shinkyu (acupuncture and moxibustion -- which
involves burning the herb moxa).

Amazingly, after two sessions with this practitioner, his abnormal
heartbeat was completely cured.

"It took my breath away," says Honda. "But I'm not saying that
Western
medicine should not be trusted and Chinese medicine magically cures
the impossible. True, I've had bad luck with doctors of Western
medicine, but their ways of treatment and what they can cure is
fundamentally different from Chinese medicine."

Unlike Western medicine, which aims to treat or attack the direct
source
of an illness, such as a tumor, traditional Chinese medicine looks at
the
body as a whole and aims to eliminate or treat the underlying problem
causing the body's dis-ease. From colds, arthritis and allergies to
rheumatism, infertility and diabetes, it's claimed to be able to cure
the
lot.

Based on the principles of yin and yang (the former being the cold
essence of the body; the latter its hot element), traditional Chinese
medicine is founded on a view of the human body comprising ki (the
source of life), ketsu (blood) and sui (body fluid). Ki, being the
source of
energy, is a yang element, while the latter two liquid elements are
yin.


"It is the balance of the yin and the yang that keeps the body in
good
health," says Shuji Kotaka, a 57-year-old former surgeon who is now a
practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. "For example, the
reason
why people start having so many problems as they get older is that
the
jin yin and the jin yang [jin is the source of growth] do not
decrease
evenly. If the balance was maintained, you would age well."

The two main treatments of traditional Chinese medicine are kanpo
(Chinese herbal medicine) and shinkyu. Kanpo involves a combination
of
shoyaku (raw drugs), including a variety of plants such as ginseng
and
cinnamon, and material from animals such as bees, cockroaches and
worms. The medicine is normally taken as a drink after boiling the
constituents prescribed by the doctor, although some are taken as
pills
or in granular form.

"We even use the poisonous plant aconite," says Kotaka. "If it is
used
correctly, it is effective in warming the body to relieve pain."

Meanwhile, in shinkyu the doctor inserts needles to stimulate tsubo
(pressure points), which are found on keiraku (the meridians or
pathways on which ki and ketsu flow through the body), and sometimes
burns moxa on the needles or directly on the skin. Both of these
procedures are said to help the ki, ketsu and sui flow smoothly.

"Many doctors recommend receiving both treatments together because
they have different effects," says Kotaka. "For example, shinkyu is
fast-
acting for those in pain, whereas kanpo is more suitable for chronic
conditions."

All this, of course, comes after the doctor has made a diagnosis. In
order to do this, he or she will follow the rules of yonshin (four
ways of
diagnosing) -- boshin (looking), bunshin (smelling), monshin (asking
and
listening) and sesshin (touching). Included in the yonshin are other
particular methods such as zesshin (looking at the tongue), fukushin
(feeling the stomach) and myakushin (feeling the pulse), which are
three of the most typical features of a traditional Chinese medical
examination.

Like much else at the heart of the Japanese way of life, this theory
and
its methods arrived in these islands from China and Korea in the 6th
century, along with Buddhism. From then on, little by little,
adjustments
were made to traditional Chinese medicine to suit the Japanese
people.
The result is Japanese kanpo, in which -- among other things -- the
amount of medicine prescribed is less.



"Traditional Chinese medicine sometimes uses more than 10 times
more than Japanese kanpo," says Kotaka. "I'm not denying the effect
of
Japanese kanpo, but using this extra amount makes the treatment more
fast-acting and effective. It is not true, as many people seem to
think,
that either type of kanpo takes at least three months to show
results."

Through almost all the Edo Period (1603-1867), these types of
Oriental
medicine were the only ones that existed in Japan. Then, in the
decades
before the Meiji Restoration of 1868, "Dutch medicine" began to take
over. That was when the word kanpo (kan stands for China and po
means medicine) was coined to distinguish it from the new science
arriving from the West -- which was called ranpo, as "ran"
means "Holland." Dutch medicine (so called because the first Western
medical books translated into Japanese were from Holland), together
with the discovery of antibiotics, gradually relegated Chinese
medicine
to the back burner. Finally in 1884, in its all-consuming drive to
modernize, the Meiji government made Chinese medicine officially
subservient by decreeing that the only people who could call
themselves
medical doctors had to be qualified in Western medicine.

Although this is still the legal position in Japan, traditional
Chinese
medicine is slowly but surely increasing its "market share" again.

Established in 1950, The Japan Society for Oriental Medicine now has
nearly 9,000 members, and in 1989 it succeeded in starting a senmon-i
seido (medical specialist system), which awards certificates to those
who meet its standards. With that development, though it's not the
government overseeing standards, at least patients have been given a
bona fide way of knowing whether practitioners are what they claim to
be.

Another step forward is the decision by the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2001 to include oriental
medicine in the medical schools' "core curriculum," which comprises
all
the subjects it recommends be taught as compulsory subjects.
Following that very significant move, last December the JSOM
published "Nyumon Kanpo Igaku (Beginner's Kanpo Medicine)," primarily
for use as a medical school textbook.

"This is a major breakthrough for us," says Tatsuya Kawaguchi, a
spokesperson for JSOM. "At present there are only between 6,000 and
7,000 doctors of Chinese medicine in Japan, but as it is now being
taught in medical schools, that number is sure to increase."

There is, however, another major obstacle that traditional Chinese
medicine has yet to overcome -- the insurance industry.

Since 1976, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has allowed
public insurance to cover 147 types of kanpo formulae. Some
institutions, however, choose not to offer this cover.

"There is a wide range in the quality of shoyaku," says Toshihiko
Hanawa, president of the Oriental Medicine Research Center at the
Kitasato Institute in Tokyo's Minato Ward. "Insurance does not cover
the
expensive shoyaku we use, so, to be covered by insurance, we would
have to lower the quality of the medicines."

For shinkyu practitioners and patients, the situation is even worse,
as it
is only covered by insurance in a few rare instances. This is despite
the
World Health Organization having designated and approved shinkyu as a
traditional medicine as long ago as 1972.

The result of all this is that, without insurance to foot the bill,
the
number of patients is far fewer than it would otherwise be. The cost
to
those turning to kanpo or shinkyu is therefore high, with the average
being between 20,000 yen and 30,000 yen a month for each, according
to the institute's data.

Even worse, according to Hanawa, the Health Ministry is now trying to
have kanpo taken out of public insurance cover altogether.

"This is because unlike Western medicine, which is based on evidence
proved by clinical experiments, Chinese medicine cannot provide
evidence because it does not have a standard procedure. Each is a
made-to-order medicine."

One of the characteristics of kanpo is that it not only cures, but
also
treats mibyo (mi means "not yet," and byo means "illness"), meaning
it
is also concerned with strengthening the immune system and treating
the symptoms of irregularity in the body before a disease actually
develops.


Kotaka, the surgeon turned practitioner of traditional Chinese
medicine,
has been researching the prevention and cure of cancer. He
established
Chui Clinic Kotaka in 1993, located in Tokyo's Ginza district.

"I spent 15 years operating on patients with cancer," says Kotaka.
"But
the results were so diverse, with some people's disease spreading,
and
others' being cured. That was when I thought there must be more
important factors involved, like strengthening the immune system, and
decided to transfer from Western to Chinese medicine."

Kotaka now treats cancer patients with a twin-track approach, using
kanpo both to boost their immune system and also to attack cancer
cells. Included in his "recipes" are mouth-watering ingredients such
as
ground centipedes and scorpions.

As a former surgeon, Kotaka says he understands the necessary role of
Western medicine. In particular, because neither traditional Chinese
medicine nor Japanese kanpo allow for incisions to be made in the
human body, he says his patients should ideally consult doctors of
both
schools.

"Both Western and Chinese medicine have their advantages and
disadvantages," says Kotaka. "But that is precisely why we must
cooperate and complement each other."