This section contains four articles that outline the scope and practice of Traditional Chinese Medice:
Traditional Chinese Medicine
The philosophy of Traditional Chinese Medicine is preventive in nature and views the practice of waiting to treat a disease until the symptoms are full-blown as being similar to “digging a well after one has become thirsty.” In compliance with this, TCM makes a point of educating the patient with regard to lifestyle so that the patient can assist in his or her own therapeutic process. The TCM practitioner educates the patient about diet, exercise, stress management, rest, and relaxation.
As Traditional Chinese Medicine views the human body as a reflection of the natural world-the part containing the whole-the TCM doctor thinks and speaks in analogies with nature. The flows of energy and fluids in the body are spoken of as channels and rivers, seas and reservoirs. A diagnosis might describe the body in terms of the elements-wind, heat, cold, dryness, dampness. Despite this poetic language, TCM is not a folk medicine but an all professional discipline, based on an alternative, complete system of thought.
The terms yin and yang are used by the TCM practitioner to describe the various opposing physical conditions of the body. These terms stem from a basic Chinese concept describing the interdependence and relationship of opposites. Much as hot cannot be understood or defined without first having experienced cold, yin cannot exist without its opposite yang, and yang cannot exist without yin. Together, the two complementary poles form a whole.
Roger Jahnke, O.M.D., of Santa Barbara, California, explains that when applying these concepts to the human body, yin refers to the tissue of the organ, while yang refers to its activity. In yin deficiency, the organ does not have enough raw materials to function. In yang deficiency, the organ does not react adequately when needed.
Maoshing Ni, D.O.M., Ph.D., L.Ac., Vice-President of Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Santa Monica, California adds that these two conditions are forever connected, though, in a system of interdependence and interrelatedness. For example, a yin deficiency in thyroid hormone levels, the raw material of the thyroid gland, would eventually cause a yang deficiency in the thyroid, as its function becomes impaired by the lack of hormones. Likewise, poor thyroid function, a yang deficiency, would eventually result in a yin deficiency, as the gland’s output of hormones decreased.
Traditional Chinese Medicine also introduces a major component of the body, qi (also referred to as chi), that Western medicine does not even acknowledge. According to Dr. Ni, qi is difficult to define. He calls it life force, and it is all inclusive of the many types of energy within the body and is essential for life itself. This vital life energy flows through the body following pathways called meridians.
These meridians flow along the surface of the body, and through the internal organs, with each meridian being given the name of the organ through which it flows, such as “liver,” or “large intestine.” Organs can be accessed for treatment through their specific meridians, and illness can occur when there is a blockage of qi in these channels. Therefore it is essential in Traditional Chinese Medicine to keep the qi flowing in order to keep up health. The healthy individual has an abundance of qi flowing smoothly through the meridians and organs. With this flow, the organs are able to harmoniously support each other’s functions.
Five Phase Theory
Another important concept in Traditional Chinese Medicine is the interrelationship of the organs to each other. Ten organs are arranged into a system that places each in one of five categories: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. This system, called the Five Phase Theory, is based on the supposition that each organ either nourishes or inhibits the proper functioning of another organ, just as the basic elements also act either adversely or beneficially on each other. Dr. Ni says that the Chinese have, for thousands of years, watched how things worked around them in order to understand why things happen, why things transform from one thing to another. They’ve taken this same conceptual model and applied it to the human body and found it really works well.
For example, as fire melts metal, so does the heart, which is associated with fire, control the lungs, which are associated with metal. Likewise, as metal cuts wood, the lungs control the liver; as wood penetrates the earth, the liver controls the spleen; as the earth dams water, the spleen controls the kidneys; and as water quenches fire, the kidneys control the heart.
Dr. Ni explains, the organs are also divided up into two groups of yin and yang organs. The heart, spleen, lungs, kidney, and liver belong to the yin group, because they are what we call more substantial organs, more solid, whereas, the yang organs are hollow organs like the small intestine, stomach, large intestine, and bladder, where things just pass through. They’re more functional--remember, yang is function, action, and yin is more passive, solid, substantial-that’s why they’re categorized that way.
| Element |
Yin Organ |
Yang Organ |
| Fire |
Heart |
Small intestine |
| Earth |
Spleen |
Stomach |
| Metal |
Lungs |
Large intestine |
| Water |
Kidney |
Bladder |
| Wood |
Liver |
Gallbladder |
Understanding Traditional Chinese Medicine
By James K. Rotchford, M.D., M.P.H
In many areas of Western medicine, rigorously controlled research and carefully documented experience allow fairly definitive answers to questions of diagnosis and treatment of any given malady. Although the quality of research in acupuncture is now better meeting the requirements of Western medicine, we still can rarely answer questions based on a Western scientific-evidence-based model. The reasons for which lie in the nature of the two systems themselves. Nature does not reveal itself to us, but only gives answers to the questions that we pose. In November of 1997 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a conference on acupuncture to determine what answers we do have from a rigorous scientific standpoint.
Read the NIH Consensus Statement on Acupuncture
The distinct methods used by oriental medicine have long posed problems of understanding and accreditation for Western practitioners seeking to verify the efficacy of acupuncture. Western allopathic medicine treats diagnoses, and diagnoses are often established by fairly objective impersonal standards. The conventional Western medical model, by treating specific and “objective” diagnoses, can easily design studies which permit statistical inferences about the benefits of an intervention.
This approach is in contrast to traditional acupuncture models where an individual, not a diagnosis, is treated. Treatment is based not only on diagnostic evaluations derived from subjective signs and symptoms but on an accurate assessment of a patients nature/constitution. In a medical model such as traditional oriental medicine,where optimal treatment requires individualization, Western statistical analyses and study design must challenge a sole reliance on “standard” approaches to be meaningful.
Therein lies the problem. It is human nature to want the best medical care according to established standards, which in this country are based on the traditional scientific model. Average Westerners, having been exposed to a fairly homogeneous group of medical practitioners, tend to assume that there is an optimal treatment regimen for any given condition. Since most medical doctors will ask similar questions, do similar exams, order similar tests and recommend similar therapies for a given problem, their approach being based on similar research, teaching and experience, people assume that a physician who deviates from the norm is either ignorant or incompetent. (The exception would be physicians exploring new treatment regimes in research settings.)
There have been attempts to “standardize” acupuncture approaches. The Chinese government under communist rule has created a model of acupuncture called Traditional Chinese Medicine. This is the model taught in most acupuncture schools in the West. Although based on traditional models of oriental medicine, particularly herbal approaches, it only partially reflects the wealth of acupuncture models used historically and today.
For those interested in studying the history of acupuncture, I recommend the book:
* In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor
by Peter Eckman, M.D.
Cypress Book Co. 1996
3450 Third Street, Unit 4B
San Francisco, CA 94124
The Yellow Emperor and other recent studies of acupuncture make it evident that the world of oriental medicine is much more diversified than the world of western medicine. There are different schools of acupuncture with significantly different approaches to patients.
Some practitioners approach patients from a standard medical perspective: What’s the diagnosis? Here’s the treatment.Others are clearly more interested in exploring the implications of a symptom/condition in order to improve not only present, but future health as well. Recently, I heard a well-published acupuncturist state that he wasn’t so concerned whether a terminally ill patient died if he was able to help the patient obtain self actualization prior to death as a result of the acupuncture treatment.
The diversity of approaches and the nature of the practice of medicine often cause some practitioners to hold strong opinions about how a patient should or should not be treated. And there even remains, understandably, quite a bit of controversy about who is qualified to practice acupuncture. Here political, legal, and financial pressures enter into the picture, further complicating and clouding our understanding of oriental medicine.
As a result of all of the above limitations on our knowledge of acupuncture, you might find the answers to some of your questions somewhat vague. The answers you will find here are from physicians experienced in several “approaches” to acupuncture and desirous for their patients to benefit from the best of all effective treatments medicine can offer. Our intention is to be not dogmatic, given our awareness of how little we know in this exciting and promising specialty of medicine, but to provide some introductory guidance and offer alternatives to those seeking help for conditions that conventional Western medicine has not been able to treat with great success in individual cases.
James K. Rotchford, M.D., M.P.H
Acupuncture as Preventative Medicine
By Damon P. Miller II, M.D., N.D.
There are aspects to the tradition of acupuncture that pre-date the China of Mao Tse Tung that still survive, especially in the traditions of acupuncture in Japan, Vietnam and the styles of acupuncture taught and practiced in England and Europe. In these oldest traditions of acupuncture, the most skilled practitioner was the physician who could, through a careful evaluation of subtle physical signs and a careful evaluation of the condition of the mind and spirit of the person, detect disease in its earliest stages, before the person had become gravely ill. In ancient China, the physician was only paid as long as everyone in the family was healthy and if the head of the family became ill, it was the physician’s duty not only to treat the ill person but to support the family until the illness had passed. This can be a hard idea for the Western mind to grasp, for there is very little emphasis on preventative medicine in Western medicine, though there is increasing awareness that the energy spent in keeping a person well is as important as the treatment of a disease once it occurs.
The process of identifying and treating imbalances in a person before they have degenerated into serious physical problems has proven very useful for the people seen in this office. A person might begin treatment seeking relief from a chronic problem with seasonal allergies. The problems with the allergies improves, and the person also notes that they no longer come down with colds and flu as often, that their sleep is better, and their mood and energy level improves. This is a very common experience, that people come seeking treatment for a specific problem, only to find that the treatment brings improvement to many aspects of their life. In the oldest traditions of acupuncture, a person would see their practitioner several times a year to insure their continued good health.
Damon P. Miller II, M.D., N.D.
Conditions Treated by Traditional Chinese Medicine
Copyright 2004-2005 www.online-ambulance.com
Traditional Chinese Medicine addresses the full range of human illness. While best known for treating chronic illnesses such as asthma, allergies, headaches, high blood pressure, gallbladder disease, lupus, diabetes, and gynecological disorders, TCM also treats acute, infectious illness. Vast research is continuously being pursued in a wide range of TCM applications and reported on in scores of medical journals published around the world.
TCM effectively complements modern Western medicine when the two systems are utilized in concert for acute, chronic, or life-threatening diseases. In China, a combination of TCM and modern Western medicine has been shown to be more effective for treating liver cancer than Western medicine alone. TCM can also minimize the dangerous side effects of some Western medicines while reinforcing their positive therapeutic effects.
In his practice, Dr. Hirsh sees many patients in conjunction with Western doctors for barrenness problems and is able to design acupuncture treatments that complement and support the other medical procedures. He frequently gives acupuncture treatment to women who have just been artificially inseminated, and he works with patients taking Clomid (a fertility drug) to help regulate the woman’s fertility cycle. As Dr. Hirsh states that traditional Chinese Medicine can increase the success rate of Western medicine, and at the same time slow down the clock on a woman’s aging endocrine system.
The Story of Mr. Ho
Li Shi-zhen, the Chinese doctor venerated for reformalizing Traditional Chinese Medicine in the seventeenth century, told the story of Mr. Ho, an old woodcutter, bent over with age. Mr. Ho lived alone in the forest, which was a good thing, because he could hardly cut wood anymore and had to forage for food to supplement his tiny income. One day he came across a large tuber (which looked like a huge potato), scratched it out of the ground, and made a stew of it. This was all he had to eat for several days. But this was very lucky because, to his amazement, he found himself gradually standing up, having more energy and being able to chop more wood. Attributing this to the plant, he consumed it for several months and gained greater energy-so much that he attracted a young woman whom he married and soon they had several children. The tuber he found (Polygonal multiflorum) was named ‘ho-shou wu’ in honor of Mr. Ho.
In Li Shi-zhen’s story, the old woodcutter had kidney weakness which gave rise to a weak lower back, poor sexual function, and the symptoms of old age. Ho-shou-wu helps these conditions and it is a major component of ‘sho-wu-chih,’ a commercially prepared tea that is drunk for health maintenance by millions of Chinese every day.
A History of Meeting West and East
Hypertension in the West is termed liver fire and can be treated by TCM. A famous physician in China, Dr. Wu, was visited by a forty-two-year-old man who had been diagnosed as having hypertension and the early stages of coronary heart disease. He complained of throbbing temples and soreness at the top of his head. An examination identified the following elements: red (not pink) tongue, deep yellow urine, constipation, poor appetite, painful teeth and eyes, insomnia, pain on the right side of the body, and immoderate dreaming. His pulse was “wiry and sinking.” The man was diagnosed with constrained liver qi accompanied by liver fire ascending to disturb the head.
The treatment called for harmonizing the liver, cooling the liver fire, and transforming mucus. Twelve herbs were given as a tea for three days and another combination for nine additional days. With this treatment, the patient’s blood pressure dropped from 180/130 to 130/90, well within normal range, and soon all his symptoms disappeared. A final herbal prescription was then given, which was taken for a longer period of time to ensure that the patient’s blood pressure remained normal.
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