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Traditional Chinese medicine
Original Work by Wikipedia Editor
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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM, also known as "Chinese medicine" or "Traditional Oriental Medicine") is based on the belief that the body will fight off and recover from illnesses when the body is in balance in terms of Yin Yang and the Qi. Despite a long history, Chinese doctors in each generation guarded their knowledge as family secrets. Little of the knowledge was shared in public for peer reviews until the government of the People's Republic of China established modern research and education systems for the discipline.
Some westerners considered Chinese medicine unscientific and some even equated it with Voodoo magic. Others treat it as a complementary and alternative medicine; for example, some use it to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy when treating cancer patients. Recent research in China and elsewhere may help to add some scientific insights on why some treatments are effective.
TCM utilizes numerous techniques or healing modalities to achieve the desired balance of Yin and Yang as well as Qi, blood, and bodily fluids. These include:
Acupuncture
Herbology
Moxibustion and Moxa
Nutrition or food therapy
Cupping
Qigong
Gua Sha or coin-rubbing
Plum Blossom or seven-star
Tuina or Chinese acupressure
Herbology is traditionally one of the more important modalities utilized in TCM. Each herbal medicine prescription is a cocktail of many herbs tailored to the individual patient. The herbs are simmered in water over several hours to reduce to a cup of concentrated herbal tea. A typical prescription reduces from eight bowls of water into one bowl of herbal tea (a rice bowl is the usual measuring device in prescriptions.) The practitioner usually designs a remedy using one or two main ingredients that target the illness. Then the practioner adds many other ingredients to adjust the formula to the patient's Yin Yang conditions. Sometimes, ingredients are needed to cancel out toxicity or side-effects of the main ingredients. Some herbs require the use of other ingredients as catalyst or else the brew will be ineffective. The latter steps require great experience and knowledge, and make the difference between a good Chinese herbal doctor and an amateur. Unlike western medications, the balance and interaction of all the ingredients are more important than the effect of individual ingredients. A key to success in TCM is the treatment of each patient as an individual.
Many Chinese people trust Chinese medicine more than mainstream western medicine, especially in any TCM modality, including the following specialty areas:
Herbal medicine
Food therapy
Acupuncture
Dit Da or Tieh Ta (跌打 literally, fall and strike) - Practitioners who specialize in healing trauma due to sports injury, such as bone fractures, cuts, bruises etc. It is not a branch of Chinese medicine but a spin-off from a long history of Chinese martial arts. However, these specialists also use regular Chinese medicine if internal injury is involved.
This article is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the
Wikipedia article "Chinese Medicine".
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Last Modified: 2003-12-26 |
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