Hi, my name is Gary and it's my first time posting here, glad to meet
everyone. I have been writing articles about Chinese Medicine based
on my own experiences and understanding of this field of healing. I
would like to share an article I wrote recently. Please give it a
look and give me some comments on my trend of thought. Thanks~



From the story of King Midas, to the development of Modern Medicine
vs. Chinese Medicine


When I was young, the story of King Midas left a deep impression in my
mind. King Midas had the power to turn everything that he touches into
gold, making him the wealthiest person in the world. Although this
power ended up becoming a burden for the king, the idea of creating
gold has been an aspiring one. Alchemy, the investigation of nature
with the goal of converting metals into gold and silver has long been
a major driving force of Western science up to the 18th century. Many
alchemists made significant contributions to what was the modern day
chemistry and physics through their quest to uncovering the recipe of
gold making. The study of alchemy helped lay the foundation for modern
day chemistry which is also the basis of modern day medicine.
By contrast, ancient Chinese emperors have long been pursuing
immortality. Qin Shi Huangs (The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty)
aspiration for eternal health has been well documented as well as
various other emperors throughout Chinese history. Instead of wealth,
Chinese emperors were more interested in prolonging their life. Such
difference of goals between Western and Eastern rulers had a deep
impact on the science development of each civilization. While alchemy
was considered a serious science up to the 18th century, Chinese
emperors turned to Taoism and Taoist priests for guidance towards
immortality.

If Western medicine was developed under the foundation of chemistry,
Chinese medicine was a science built from systematology. Before the
invention of computers, human have never built any product that had
similar systematic make-up as the human body. Because of the lack of
knowledge in systematology, Chinese medicine theories have been
difficult to understand in the past for non practitioners and are
often times considered as metaphysics or sometimes even as a religion.
However, since computers became a commodity in the late 20th century,
systemotology has become common knowledge for many people. If we
compare our body system to the computer system, we can see that they
have many similarities. For example, a typical computer system
consists of hardware, operation software, and application software.
Similarly, Chinese medicine defines to body system into 3 parts, body,
mind, and soul. The mind, in Chinese medicine in the sense of Chinese
medicine, is not just the brain organ but rather the entire conscious
of a person. If a person attempts to dissect a computer, he will not
be able to find proof of the operation and application software. By
the same token, mind and soul cannot be seen through anatomy.
Operation and application systems can only be seen when the computer
system is functioning. Similarly, a persons heart and soul can only be
found while the person is still alive. Many observations of Chinese
medicine can only be found on a live person, these phenomenons
disappear after the person dies.

Reincarnation is a concept that is believed by many Eastern religions.
The believe that a persons soul will remain after the persons body is
deceased is similar to a computers software being able to function on
different computer hardware. However, because we cannot prove any of
these theories through anatomy, we are unable to explain these
occurrences.

Modern medicine, like most other sciences, is interested in evidence
and proofs. Most of these proofs are obtained through anatomy, which
is a field that Chinese medicine is lacking in. If anatomy is a
science that is performed on a dead person, Chinese medicine can be
described as a science that can only be performed on a living person.
For instance, the meridian is a major system used in Chinese medicine.
During acupuncture therapy, when the needle arrives at the correct
meridian points, patients will report sensations such as soreness,
numbness, and bloating feel. Acupuncturist will feel that the needle
appears to stick to the meridian points once the needle is in place.
Such event is known as Attracted Needle in acupuncture. Acupuncturists
have attempted to perform acupuncture on corpses, however, these
phenomenon do not occur on dead subjects. Thus, researches regarding
acupuncture can only be done on living creatures, rather through plain
anatomy. Besides acupuncture, the flow of the body fluid is also a key
study in the meridian system. Yet once a person dies, the body fluids
will no longer flow regularly. Therefore once again we cannot observe
these phenomenons through anatomy. For these reasons, it has been much
more difficult to provide proofs for Chinese medicine theories compare
to modern medicine.

Besides the lack of proof using anatomy, Chinese medicines diagnosis
is based on another system that is difficult to prove scientifically.
Chinese medicine constructed a complete model to describe the human
body system. This model divides the bodys 10 major organs into 5
groups, each group consists a pair of organs. Each pair of organs is
related closely to each other. When an organ experience changes during
illness, the organ that corresponds to sick organ will go through
similar changes. Chinese medicine practitioners observed these changes
and created a system that uses wood, fire, earth, metal, and water as
symbols to describe the body system.

During Chinese medicine diagnosis, Chinese doctors need to observe the
patients symptoms closely as well as the patients physical and mental
conditions. Using the above system as a guide, Chinese doctors then
use logical reasoning to diagnosis the illness. Such reasoning
requires the doctor to be both experienced and skilled. Thus,
traditional Chinese doctors are trained through the form of master and
apprentice.

Similar to the meridian system, Chinese medicines model for human body
system can only be seen on living body. With the current technology
that we have access to, we cannot prove many phenomenons described in
the model. Yet with the continuing technological progress, the real
concepts of Chinese medicine should be able to be accepted as more and
more people understand its various systems. And for many current
chronic diseases, Chinese medicine may be the right direction towards
finding a cure.