Traditional Chinese Medicine & Contemporary Western Science

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Traditional & Contemporary Western Science

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Dr. Mae-Wan Ho (m.w.ho) discovers out how traditional Chinese

medicine is at the heart of indigenous Chinese culture, and suggests how it

could be understood in terms of contemporary Western science.

 

Sources and references for this article are posted on ISIS Members’ website

(http://www.i-sis.org.uk/full/GCM4Full.php). Details here

(http://www.i-sis.org.uk/membership.php).

 

The first book of Chinese medicine to have been preserved for posterity is

Neijing, or Classic of Internal Medicine, by Huangdi, the Yellow Emporor, which

appeared during the ‘Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period (770-221 BC),

and sums up medical achievements that were made before.

 

Accompanying Neijing is Nanjing, or Classic of Difficult Medical Problems, and

other medical texts written before the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD). These

laid the theoretical foundations of traditional Chinese medical practices that

must have gone back to the dawn of indigenous Chinese culture.

 

During the Han Dynasty, other important texts were added, in particular, Hang

Zhongjing’s Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases, and Synopsis of the

Golden Bookcase, which laid out diagnosis of syndromes and treatment of diseases

based on the names of the six ‘meridians’ of acupuncture.

 

Many other texts were added subsequently to these great classics as experience

and knowledge accumulated in an unbroken tradition, up until the Republican

government took power, and in 1929, TCM was almost legally abolished.

 

But after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, TCM was revived and

actively researched, along with western medicine.

 

Dr. Shuai Xuezhong, Associate Professor and Director of the English –TCM

Teaching and Research Section of Hunan College of Traditional ,

presented the theoretical foundations of TCM in terms of a ‘materialist’ and

‘dialectical’ outlook that actually cuts across the whole of Chinese culture.

 

The ‘materialist’ outlook is based on medical practice, said to derive from the

‘dialectical materialist’ culture of the ancients.

 

The ‘materialist’ description of the world is that it consists of matter

resulting from the interaction of yin and yang principles. The human body is

formed by qi that fills the space between heaven and earth. Qi is the energy

that moves, and everything in the universe is the result of the movement of qi.

 

TCM holds that jing (vital principle, or essence) is the primordial substance of

life, which is congenital as well as hereditary. It is received by the offspring

from its parents. The parents’ vital principles combine and form the substance

from which the embryo develops. After birth, " the cultivation and supplement of

congenital and acquired jing is responsible for the continuous activities of the

body. " Qi maintains bodily activity, its motion and change – energy

transformation – is referred to as qihua, is basic to life. The essence of qihua

is the movement of yin and yang. In the process, qi ascends and descends within

the body and transforms within the body, and leave and enter the body.

 

The mutual dependence of xing (body) and shen (spirit) is central to TCM. Spirit

comprises emotional and mental activities. The unity of body and spirit is

essential to maintaining health and preventing disease.

 

Health is identified as a balance between yin and yang tendencies, and disease,

a breakdown in balance. But the healthy body is conceived of as having an

anti-pathogenic tendency that can be cultivated by attention to regulating and

nourishing the body and spirit.

 

The ‘dialectical’ outlook sees all things dynamic and interconnected. The body

is an organic whole that constantly moves and transforms through the contrary

forces of yin and yang, which also govern the rest of the world. It also

recognizes the primacy of qi as animating life.

 

Emotions act upon the body. For example, anger injures the liver, joy affects

the heart, worry harms the spleen, anxiety impacts on the lung, and fright acts

on the kidneys.

 

Therapy involves getting yin and yang back into balance: healing the cold,

compensating the deficiency and purging the excess. Therapy is based on applying

drugs that are contrary to the symptoms, using the principle of dialectics.

Contradictions are not opposing, but supporting (in restoring the balance).

 

As can be seen, the materialist and dialectical traditions are not opposed, but

complementary. It neatly fits in with the ‘dialectical materialism’ of Marxist

communist philosophy reinterpreted in terms of traditional Chinese thought.

 

Contemporary Chinese philosopher Jin Guan Tao, whom I was fortunate to have met

at a conference more than 20 years ago, has persuasively identified the

dialectical and materialist outlook with indigenous Taoist and Confucian

philosophies respectively. It demonstrates the uniquely Chinese ability to

assimilate foreign cultures into its own.

 

The great British scientist and scholar of Chinese science, Joseph Needham,

referred to the Chinese culture as ‘organic materialism’, which I think, is a

more apt description of the indigenous Taoist philosophy that also has much in

common with the emerging organic perspective in contemporary western science.

 

I have made a case that qi is better identified with coherent energy which can

do work, as opposed to random energy, which is inconsequential. Qihua is thus

the transformation and mobilisation of coherent energy within the organism.

 

Yin and yang are easily identified with polarities, more literally with negative

and positive electrical polarisations. It is becoming increasingly clear that

electrical fields and currents are central to energy mobilisation and

intercommunication in the body.

 

I co-authored a paper with David Knight, published in 1998, suggesting that the

meridian system of Chinese acupuncture may have its basis in the biological

water channels associated with aligned collagen fibres in our connective

tissues, which, according to contemporary physical chemistry, support ‘jump

conduction’ of protons (positive electricity associated with hydrogen ions),

that’s much faster than ordinary conduction through electrical wires. It is part

of the intercommunication system that links up the entire body to give perfect

coordination.

 

Jing has a ready translation as hereditary influences, which is much more subtle

than simply DNA. Indeed, the Chinese often refer to " congenital or prenatal

deficiencies " which must be compensated by post-natal care and nourishment.

 

The anti-pathogenic tendency of the body is readily identified with the immune

system of western medicine, which does play an important, if not the most

important role in disease prevention.

 

The unity of mind and body or emotions and body is not so strange, after all,

when stress is generally recognized as a risk factor in many diseases.

 

As can be seen, many of the most important concepts in traditional Chinese

medicine have their counterparts in contemporary Western science. There is

fertile ground for mutual enrichment towards understanding the organic whole in

health and disease, and towards developing the most effective health system for

nations.

 

 

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