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

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everyone. I have been writing articles about based

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From the story of King Midas, to the development of Modern Medicine

vs.

 

 

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.