Articles
The Future of Chinese
Medicine (iii)
by Zhao Xinxian
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Chinese Medicine
Advantages
1. Clinical and historical experiences for thousands of years
On one hand, Chinese Medicine is always the only iatrology for the existence
and multiplies of the Chinese nation in thousands years of Chinese civilization
history and has made indelible contribution for the health of Chinese
people.
In around 1948, I caught typhoid, which was not called typhoid at that
time, and suffered from hyperpyrexia for more than ten days. My parents
thought I would not survive. Guided by an old herbalist practitioner, I started
to take Chinese herbal medicine, and it cured my illness.
What I am trying to say is that although all Chinese Medicine theories
have not been validated by science, the clinical experiences in China
for thousands years and their curative effects are incontestable. We cannot
doubt Chinese Medicine just because it is not recognized in some countries
and the history may prove everything.
On the other hand, it is an important method to develop new medicine
by seeking compounds from the natural resources. The probability of success
to sort out new medicine from the traditional Chinese herbals include
digitalis and Taxol, etc. With thousands of years of clinical historic
practice, TCM is improving significantly. For example, in order to develop
the medication to cure diabetes, the sorted model for Western medicine
shall be found in ten thousand candidate objects, while Chinese Medicine
has thousands years of curative experience to cure diabetes with pumpkin
and balsam pear with great probability.
2. The health-keeping function of Chinese Medicine-to prolong life
Traditional Chinese practitioners always place importance on the prevention
of illness, they emphasize prevention illness and stimulate the premunition
of human body. Health care in Chinese Medicine has a long history in China
with abundant experiences. Chinese herbal medicines listed as the top-graded
product in the "Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing" having tonic function
include ginseng, glossy ganoderma, Polygonum multiflorum and the fruit
of Chinese wolfberry, etc. There is a story told about Polygonum multiflorum
shown as follows.
Once there was an old man seeking for the ways of perpetual rejuvenation.
One day, he met an old woman crying at the roadside and asked her the
reason. The old woman said that her father struck her. Then the old man
was amazed why she had an older father since she herself was so old and
asked her: "How are you now?" The woman replied that: "I'm
seventy-four". The old man asked the woman to show him her father.
The father seemed to be angry with black hairs and hale spirits like his
daughter. The old man asked the father: "Why are you so angry?"
and was replied "because my mother has beaten me". Upon this
word, the old man turned more astonished. At that time, an old woman walked
out of the house and the former woman introduced: "This is my grandma."
The old man asked the grandma: "Why did you beat your son?"
and was replied: "because my mother got angry since my son hit my
granddaughter". The old man was astonished because of the longevity
of the four generations in the same family, and then he implored the secrets
of longevity and was told that they drunk Polygonum multiflorum in water.
It's impossible for us to verify the facticity of the above-said story.
But the curative effects of Chinese Medicine and its action in prolonging
life and building up bodies should not be doubted. Li Qingyun was the
famous Chinese Medicine scholar, as well as one of the famous longevous
old man in the world. He was born in 1677 and died in 1933, living for
256 years. At 100, once he won the special governmental hortation for
his outstanding achievements in Chinese Medicine. At 200, he still gave
lectures in the university. In his life, Li Qingyun had 24 wives with
a lot of offspring. He owed his longevity to three reasons: first, to
abstain from eating meal for a long term; secondly, to keep calm and sanguine
mind; thirdly, to drink the fruit of Chinese wolfberry in water as the
tea.
The neoteric research indicates that the Chinese Medicine's tonic function
may reinforce the functions of nervous system, improve the physiological
aging phenomenon, strengthen the organic immunity, reduce the geriatric
diseases frequently occurring, facilitate the organic metabolic functions
and to activate the vitality. As society progresses and people's quality
of life gradually improve, the people's consciousness of health is changing.
It's most people's strong desire to keep health, not to be ill and to
improve the quality of life. This is where the advantages of TMC can be
found. Therefore, it is one of the main directions for the development
of TMC to fully execute the health-keeping function of Chinese Medicine.
3. Whole concept
The theoretical system of traditional Chinese medical science is being
formed step by step through long term the clinical practices. This unique
theoretical system characterizes by its entire concept and dialectic treatment.
Entirety means unitarity and integrity. The traditional Chinese medical
science attaches great importance to the unitarity and integrity of human
body and the mutual relationship between it and the nature. TCM views
human body is an organic entirety, all of its components are indiscerptible
in structure and mutual unisonous in terms of function and pathology.
At the same time, it realizes the close relation between human body and
natural environment. Human keeps normal organic bio-activities in the
struggle of acclimatize itself to nature and remold nature. The thought
including the unitarity of the external and internal environments and
the integrity of the organ itself is called the entire concept. When expatiate
upon the physiologic change, pathologic change of human body, diagnosis
and treatment of diseases, the traditional Chinese medical science is
centralizing on the basic viewpoint of "human body is an organic
entirety". This is totally different with the Western doctors' practice
to treat symptoms but not the diseases. When the modern laboratory iatrology
has come to the molecular level, the people have discovered that the Western
medical science based on anatomy cannot cure all diseases. There is a
need to study human body and cure illness on the whole level and has to
think about the relation between the human being and the nature. Therefore,
the macroscopic entire therapeutics is in the ascendant in curing the
difficult and complicated illnesses that are impossible for the Western
doctors.
In 1970's, I was always harassed by chronic headache and tried all Western
medicines that only could lenitively reduce the symptoms and I was afraid
of the long term side effects. Later, a friend told me a traditional Chinese
prescription and reassured me that it would cure my condition completely
after taking it for a monthly. He said that if it failed, he would walk
on the road with his head downward. With uncertainty, I tried this prescription
and then it worked. It had relieved the symptoms of headache constantly.
After one month, it worked like a wonder that my headache healed and never
recurred. Excited upon the effect, several colleagues and I began to study
and develop the prescription and create the "Zheng Tian Wan"
later, one of the leading products of Sanjiu Group. "Zheng Tian Wan"
is composed of more than 10 Chinese Medicines including the rhizome of
Chuanxiong, red flower, peach kernel, uncaria stem with hooks, Asarum
sieboldii and angelica with the effects of removing obstruction in channels,
dissolving stasis, invigorating the circulation of blood and nourishing
the blood. Analyzed from the point of modern iatrology, "Zheng Tian
Wan" may accelerate the composition of the DNA for the heart, kidney,
thyroid gland and adrenal gland, etc., assist to shrink the intracerebral
blood vessel, reduce the intracranial pressure, and relieve or remove
the headache completely. With the pharmacological functions of easing
pains, calming and restraining the platelet aggregation, distending blood
vessels of brain, improve the microcirculation, increasing the runoff
of the brain blood and reduce the blood pressure, a considerable of clinical
experimentation shows that Zheng Tian Wan has an excellent curative effects
to hemicrania and chronic headache. This fact not only indicated the cooperating
tempering relation among the viscera, but also affirmed the scientific
nature of the entire concept of Chinese Medicine from the level of molecular
biology.
4. Individual viewpoint
Individual viewpoint is the other essential characteristic of traditional
Chinese medical science. The Western doctors regard the patients as the
individuals among the groups in compliance with a certain diagnosis or
therapy, so that they always try to bring the patients into their standard
treatment and change various therapeutics into the "standard"
pattern. While herbalist practitioners regard every patient as the unique, they
treat differently the same illness in different patients differently.
Therefore, herbalist practitioners are more acceptable for the patients for
their more practicability and pertinence.
5. Economic and convenient with seldom noxious side effects
The economy and convenience of TMC are shown in the two aspects of life
expectancy in China and the medical investment. The latest information
shows that the life expectancy in China has overrun seventy-three, coming
near the level of developed countries, while the investment in the medical
and public healthy expense is once one a few dozens. One of the main causes
is TCM is popular amongst Chinese people. The information issued by the
public healthy departments shows that Chinese Medicine has accounted for
40% of the gross sales volume in the medication sold, which is incomparable
for any country in the world. The second cause is that the healthy culture
is the effective guarantee of the sound health in body and mind. Chinese
Medicine is rooted in the excellent and traditional culture in China that
is fusing into people's thoughts and actions. This is the important road
for longevity with Chinese feature.
Disadvantages
1. Lack of the modern medical data:
(1) most Chinese Medicine does not have systematic pharmacological and
toxicological experimental data, (2) most Chinese Medicine lacks strict
contrast test in the clinical research and the objective forced indices
to prove its curative effects. The excessive private medical economies
bring great difficult for the scientific appraise.
2. Ineffective control over TMC qualities:
Since most Chinese Medicine are composed of two or more ingredients,
it's difficult to control the quality in the production course. At present,
there are still some technical problems existing, lacking of modern quality
standards.
3. Real and fake products coexist:
(1) because the Chinese Medicine formation has a long history and multiform
producing areas, so that there is the phenomena of "the dissimilar
objects with the same description". Take akebi for the example, there
are four kinds of them called quinquefoliolate akebi, dwarf akebi, armand
clematis stem. The problems occurring recently mainly involve the Caulis
aristolochiae manshuriensis containing the birthworl, the ingredient with
strong nephrotoxin. While he Caulis aristolochiae manshuriensis is not
the certified product of akebi and has not been stated in the Ben Cao
in the past generations. (2) The same Chinese traditional medicine may
result in different actual effects with different producing areas, time,
part and drug processing method, etc.
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