The Friendship between Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine

In 1923 Hu Shih cogently remarked that “ever since the beginning of reform tendencies in China, there is not a single person who calls himself a modern man and yet dares openly to belittle science.” 1All of China’s modern intellectuals accepted Hu Shih’s ideas on what constituted science.2 Starting from the late 19th century, some politicians and Chinese scholars with background in Western medicine have been trying to phase out Traditional Chinese Medicine totally in China. They thought Chinese medicine is a kind of pseudoscience. Chinese medicine does not have background about modern science. However, nobody can say the curative effect from Chinese medicine is really bad. On the other hand, there is something in western medicine better than Chinese medicine. Making up the friendship between them will help people who need a health care to get their original health back.

What is Traditional Chinese Medicine?
The clinical diagnosis and treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine are mainly based on the yin-yang and five elements theories. These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to the study of the physiological activities and pathological changes of the human body and its interrelationships. The typical Traditional Chinese Medicine therapies include acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qigong exercises.3 This is why so many modern intellectuals disagree with the traditional medicine. The terms, yin-yang, five elements and qigong, are not real tangible. Those are from the imagination from our ancestors who study traditional medicine. This is not a kind of science. However Dr. Croizier said the most obvious value is that Chinese medicine has survived for thousands of years because in many cases it actually works.4

What is western medicine?
Western medicine, instead of Chinese medicine, is an absolute science. It is a study of the symptom of the disease and the treatment it directly. It can cure the disease very fast just like having an operation or taking an injection. However, the problem is you cannot get your original health back.

What to do with them two?
Chinese medicine and western medicine also have something in common. Chinese medicine always use herbal medicine which is from the nature, and the western medicine always use the pills which using the modern technique to synthesize the compound they need. Chemistry is from nature, and the nature has more kinds of compounds than the compounds synthesize in the lab. Why not using the nature compound instead of lab compound?

Within China, there has been a great deal of cooperation between Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners and Western medicine, especially in the field of ethno medicine. Outside of China, the relationship between Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western medicine is more contentious. While more and more medical schools are including classes on alternative medicine in their curricula, older Western doctors and scientists are more likely than their Chinese counterparts to skeptically view Traditional Chinese Medicine as archaic pseudoscience and superstition.

Chinese medicine’s main point is to see the phenomenon of the disease and consider the balance of your human body, then try using some medicine to repair your healthy balance. For example, there is a room full up with rubbish and attract numerous flies, and this room is just like your sick body. Because of those rubbish, numerous flies fly into that room. What should you do if you want let those flies leave that room? For Chinese medicine, people should clean the room first, and then the flies must disappear after the room got clearly. But do not you think that treatment is too slow? The room is getting more and more clearly which is just like your health is getting more and more balance. However, the flies are breeding all the time. You cannot let those flies disappear immediately. This is the treatment from Chinese medicine. It works well, but it needs a long time. For some emergency, it cannot treat very well.

Western medicine sees the inspection results as standard. If you got something wrong with your body, their treatments face it directly. The same example, there is a room full up with rubbish and attract numerous flies. What should a western doctor do? He must take a powerful pesticide here, and kills those flies immediately. Of course, it works very fast. However, after a well some other flies fly towards the rubbish again. It is just like a patient get a cancer, and then he takes an operation which cut his cancer cells off. But the balance of his body damaged by the operation that means he cannot get his original health back again. Maybe he will got the cancer again and again.

By the way, both Chinese medicine and western medicine are not perfect. Both of them have their special side, and we cannot say which one is better. Just like the difference between a landscape painting and an oil painting, the Buddhism and the Catholicism, coffee and tea, a mathematician and a poet. Thinking from different side you maybe like different things. Scientist cannot integrate them together, but you can let them coordination.

We can let them coordination that is the friendship between the Chinese medicine and the western medicine. Both of them use their significant advantages to treat the disease. The western medicine kills the flies by their powerful pesticide firstly, and then the Chinese medicine cleans the dirty room immediately. By the way, the disease will recover very soon. The contradiction between Chinese medicine and western medicine is a problem of perception which having no contact with medical science.

Considering both the different and common sides of western medicine and Chinese medicine, they have their own special aspects. Each has its bright qualities and their dull qualities. There is no way to say that which one is not a science. Making up the friendship between them will help us to get our original health back.






Bibliography:
Chang Chunmai, Ting Wenchiang, K’e-hsueh yu jenshang kuan. Science and philosophy of life. Shanghai, 1923. P.3
Croizier Ralph, Traditional Medicine in Modern China, Boston: Harvard UP,1968.p.1
Shui, Qing, Introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine. 23 Mar.2003 <http://www.tcmpage.com/>
Croizier Ralph, Traditional Medicine in Modern China, Boston: Harvard UP,1968.p.3