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Traditional Chinese Medicine
by S.A. Wilson
While modern medicine might view disease as a malevolent external invasion by an enemy that must be destroyed, Traditional Chinese Medicine (T.C.M) would tend to see it as a state of depletion or vacuity, establishing vulnerability and allowing malevolent agents to enter the body and cause disease. Treatment protocol in T.C.M. would be directed toward what is referred to as the ?root? of a disease rather than aggressively attacking superficial manifestations or symptoms. Since Chinese medicine is a whole person medicine, the root of the disease might be found in the physical plane (viscera, trauma, or genetic, etc) but most frequently on the inspirational or spiritual plane (the seven passions: anger, joy, preoccupation, grief, fear, fright, and rage).
There are more than 2000 items listed in Chinese herbal pharmacopoeias, but only about 350 are used in general practice, and less than one hundred are regarded as indispensable in formulating the most popular prescriptions. When applying these herbs in treatment protocol, the primary focus is to support the rehabilitation of natural functions of the body and its mechanisms. This can be accomplished through the application of strategies like tonify, transform, regulate, drain, release, clear, expel, calm, and relieve. This differs from modern medicine which tends to replace, augment, supplement, and remove. For example, in the case of menopausal syndrome, modern medicine approach would be to augment or supplement sex hormones (estrogen and progesterone) in order to stabilize the blood levels of these messengers. In T.C.M. the approach is to tonify all glands and physiological mechanisms responsible for the production of these hormones to prevent blood levels from fluctuating thereby allowing the patient to experience a gradual withdrawal without dominating symptoms.
In closing, Chinese herbal medicine may take a bit longer to achieve desired results than with Western medicine, but it will ensure longer-lasting benefits without the potential for long-term side effects.
S.A. Wilson
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