The Difference Between Traditional Chinese Medical Science and Western Medical Science
By Ming Wu Ph.D.
The most prosperous period for Traditional Chinese Medical Science (TCM) was before
the Ming Dynasty. Although it experienced a depression for the last 100 years, the
fault absolutely did not lie with defects in theory or principle of TCM. The
fundamental cause that lead to the misconceptions of TCM theories and decreased
popularity as well as fields of application of TCM, was the fact that, TCM
practitioners after the end of the Qing Dynasty failed to accurately grasp the
essence of TCM theory, blindly accepting from the western medical science its
mechanical and isolated understanding of the functions of the human body and its
parts, as well as treatment methods based on such non-holistic medical philosophies,
leading TCM onto a mistaken path of “positivismâ€.
At first glance it appears that the mechanisms of TCM therapies can be simply and
vaguely understood as regulating vital energy & blood, clearing channels &
collaterals, balancing Yin & Yang, and adjusting the functional state of the body.
When explored in depth, it becomes much more complicated, since the TCM concepts of
Yin & Yang, Exterior & Interior, Chill & Fever, Asthenia & Sthenia, Qi & Blood, the
Five Elements, Viscera, and Channels & Collaterals, etc., are quite distant and
abstract for the modern mind. Therefore, to truly comprehend the therapeutic
theories of TCM we must first accurately understand these concepts.
Traditional Chinese Medical Science, based on holism, emphasized the observation of
the various exterior functional activities of the human body. Western Medical
Science, on the other hand, is based on mechanical reduction methods, emphasizing
linear analysis and dissection to study tissue structures as well as the
relationship between health and the functional activities of various tissues.
Normal functions can result from normal structures, but normal structures can hardly
represent normal functions. TCM emphasizes adjusting the body’s functions, while
western medicine is focused on restoring structures. Western Medical Science does
not recognize the existence of a special regulatory system in the body called the
Meridian channels and collaterals. From this lack of recognition, many factors are
erroneously thought to cause disease, while failing to offer good solutions. We
are told that eating too much fatty meat can cause hyperlipemia, too much sugar,
diabetes. Smoking can increase pulmonary cancer rate, etc. Can we really prevent
hyperlipemia, diabetes and pulmonary cancer by eating less fatty meat, less sugar
and no smoking? Not exactly. Hyperlipemia and pulmonary cancer may still occur
without eating fatty meat and smoking. The author personally knew some elders with
over 60 years of smoking history who never suffered from pulmonary cancer when they
died in their 90s. Others who never smoked have died from lung cancer in their 50s.
Some people consuming a lot of fatty meat never get hyperlipemia, while others
consuming much less get it. Why? Simple. External factors are the conditions of
change, but internal factors are the fundamental causes. External factors effect
through internal factors. Eating excessive fatty meat is an external factor,
impaired functions of digestion and dispersion of the liver and spleen is the
internal cause. Even without eating fatty meat, hyperlipemia patients can still
remain high in their cholesterol and triglyceride levels, because their liver and
spleen aren’t properly getting rid of any excess cholesterol and triglyceride for
them. Generally, it is most important to adjust the function of the body, such that
balance and harmony is achieved among all body components, and between the body and
the universe. The approach in TCM therapies goes far beyond the mechanical
reparations like in western medicine, and strives to make the human body in
consonance with nature. It is said in Emperor Huang’s Canon of Internal Medicine,
that acupuncture therapy is to adjust Qi. These rely on adjusting intangible Qi
(including Qi in the body, and in the living environment, where it’s called Feng
Shui) to achieve health and longevity.
Chinese traditional herbal medicines adjust body’s functions through their complex
compositions. There is a myriad of chemical molecules contained in a single herb,
and each chemical substance has its own biochemical and biophysical properties, all
of which contribute to the way the medicine ultimately affects/adjusts the patient’s
Qi. Many components act synergistically with each other, requiring the presence of
each other to exert certain desired health effects. That is why extracting the
major chemical ingredients from an herbal medicine can result in very different
properties from the original medicine. This is also the fundamental difference
between traditional Chinese herbal medicine and Western medicines. During the
extraction of panax (ginseng) and rhubarb, hundreds of other substances are
destroyed/left behind, so the resulting ginsenoside and chrysophanol become the
drugs of typical Western medicine, unable to exert the full effect of panax in
boosting vigor, or the full effect of rhubarb in cleansing the body of pernicious
substances.
TCM requires authentic medicinal material. How could artificially planted ginseng
of a few years compare with the wild panax of hundred years from the Changbai
Mountains? Different locales, with their associated ecosystems as part of their
Feng Shui, are believed to receive and result from different combinations and
properties of Qi from the universe. Modern science is still far from understanding
the true complexity of matters of such nature. Even if modern science can one day
catalog all the molecular components of TCM herbs, it is still possible that the
real mechanisms of TCM medicine remain elusive, since there is still the biophysical
side of things that may need to be figured out, things that pertain to vibrational
energy, so to speak, as well as higher order biochemical interactions, which
dictates which components need to be co-present with which other components, in
which proportions, in what concentrations of what solvent, at what temperature, in
what sequence of preparation, etc., etc., etc. These complexities may underlie the
difficulties in research into the “active ingredients†of mixed herbal remedies,
when it is already shown that a single herb can be so complex to analyze. The rise
in modern health syndromes, cancers, mental and neurological disorders, iatrogenic
(medically induced) diseases, etc., makes the limitations of Western Medical Science
more and more apparent, and alternative medicines more and more sort after. In the
past several years, TCM came to be vogue all over the world, and the 21st century
shall see the revival of Traditional Chinese Medical Science.