What is Chinese Medicine?

Chinese Medicine (CM) is a medical system that originated in China around 5,000 years ago.

It is a great treasure-house of culture. It does not only encompass medicine, but also classical Chinese philosophy, astronomy, science, and so on ……

History

Chinese Medicine (CM) originated in the early primitive society in China. Medical knowledge was accumulated by ancient Chinese people throughout the years of battling with diseases and natural disasters. Early historic medical records have been found carved on bones or tortoise shells.

Around 400-260 BCE, the CM classic “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine” (黃帝內經) was compiled. This classic accumulated the clinical practices and the summarization of those experiences into the fundamental theories of CM. This classic is a collection of works from multiple authors over an extended period of time and it had laid a solid foundation theory for CM.

Throughout the years, many methodologies and techniques have been developed to help cure people and maintain their health. These include acupuncture, herbal medicine, moxibustion, scraping, cupping, tuina massage, qigong exercises, meditation, etc.

Even nowadays, CM is constantly developing in order to adapt to the changes in society and the spectrum of diseases that are new and unique. New theories and treatments are constantly introduced to clinical practice to improve the understanding of clinical conditions and clinical results. CM is constantly evolving to serve mankind.

Characteristics

Chinese Medicine (CM) is a form of holistic medicine.

Everything is connected – mind, body, emotions, thoughts, actions, every tissue, every organ, the environment, and all things that exist in the universe.

1) Human Body

All parts of the human body are not isolated but act as an organic whole. They are closely related to each other, and they can affect each other. Any change in one part of the body can affect other parts or even the whole body.

The complex interactions between organs will be discussed in future articles.

Since the body works as a whole, this can be practically used in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

For example, have you ever went to a CM doctor and they asked you to stick your tongue out? This is because the tongue connects to all organs in your body through the “channel systems”. Therefore by examining the color, shape, size, coating, etc. of your tongue can reflect the conditions of your internal organs. The same applies to CM doctors touching your pulse in order to understand the condition of your body.

Also when you tell your acupuncturist you have a headache, why does the acupuncturist put needles on your hand? This is because the “channel systems” link your hands to your head, and the acupuncturist put needles on pressure points on your hand along that channel, in order to unblock the entire meridian that leads up to your head.

2) Human and Nature

“Man correlates to the heaven and earth and corresponds with the shifting of the sun and the moon” ~ “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine”

Humans are inseparable from nature. For instance, seasonal changes force humans to adapt to the changing climate. If humans do not conform to nature, diseases await.

Throughout the years a set of principles has been developed in CM to help humans to conform to nature. For example, what diet or exercises are appropriate/inappropriate in certain seasons? These will be covered in future articles.

3) Human and Society

Emotions play a huge factor in one’s health. One’s health condition can reflect on their mental status and vice versa, mental stress will affect one’s health condition.

One reason why there are many new forms of diseases nowadays is that our social environment changed. The advancement in technology and the growing complexity of the society has benefited humankind, but also brought up new challenges.

Therefore when CM doctors treat patients, they do not only do treatments like acupuncture, massage, cupping therapy, etc, but they also educate the patients about the importance of calmness in the mind and teach patients how to control their emotions. This can be achieved by doing meditation or Qigong exercises.

In one word, the key to health in CM is “Balance”.

Our body is in constant dynamic balance within ourselves, nature, and society. Once the dynamic balance is disrupted, diseases occur.

Conclusion

I believe Chinese Medicine (CM) can provide huge value to people’s health in modern times. Therefore I vow to introduce CM to the world!

In the next 25 articles, I will introduce the basic theories of CM so you can understand the language and have the mindset of CM. Then I will start sharing practical tips on improving and maintaining health.

The fundamental theories of CM have absorbed the essence of classical Chinese philosophy. And the most important is the theory of Yin and Yang.

Up next, I will share with you what is Yin and Yang. How can Yin and Yang affect your health? And after understanding the theory of Yin and Yang, how can we apply it to achieve optimal health?

See you in the next article!

Do you find CM interesting? Comment below!

Registered Acupuncturist (R.Ac), Alex Hui created this blog to share with the world the treasures in Chinese Medicine (CM).