Playing New Role in Future of Medical Science
By Deng Tietao and Jia Qian
A period of integration of Eastern and Western culture and medicine science is envisaged. Many difficult problems which the world is experiencing now may have to be solved by methods originating from Eastern culture.
China is a representative of Eastern culture. When it comes to medicine, the integration of the Western school and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) will give the world a more comprehensive system of medicine.
Western medicine, with its origin deeply rooted in Western culture, is the mainstream of medicine in modern world. TCM has its origin in Chinese culture and is completely independent of Western medicine.
Compared with a short period of about 200 years of Western medicine in China, TCM has been serving China, whose population stands at 1.3 billion now, for 5,000 years.
Since the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), China has seen many outbreaks of serious infectious disease. But none as disastrous as the plagues in Europe or the 1918 influenza epidemic in Spain which resulted in the death of more than 20 million people. What are the reasons behind this? The answer lies in the effectiveness of TCM.
“Kindness and devotion” is the centrepiece of Confucianism. It is the love of mankind. A doctor must have kindness and devotion towards his patients.
The ways of Western medicine, which use antibiotics and removes the affected part of organs, may result in life-long regret for the patient. No matter how advanced modern surgery has become, the general direction is definitely not right. TCM bears the concept of kindness and devotion. It is the proper direction for the development of medical science.
During the process of the gradual development, we hope that in the first half of 21st century, TCM:
Will free mankind from the harmful side effects of drugs, and from the pain, injury and after-effects of unnecessary medical examinations and techniques.
Bring into actual practice the idea of “A good doctor treats his patients before they become ill”. Medicine will centre upon the idea of life preservation and the promotion of health.
Will lead to Gardens of health becoming more prominent and gradually replacing hospitals as the major institutions of health care.
A unique feature of TCM is that it upholds treating the patient before he becomes sick. Western medicine has proved to be effective in treating diseases, but it does not have a good approach to treating sub-health.
TCM is effective against sub-health with its theories of overall adjustment through massage, acupuncture and etc.
The trend for the future development of TCM coincides with the strategy of promoting the exports of TCM proposed by Professor Xu Shaoying of the China Science and Technology Information Institute in 1995.
Setting up demonstrative TCM hospitals in different parts of the world is a shortcut for TCM to go international and promote the development of its industry.
A demonstrative hospital is a platform for the effective publicity of TCM. The greater the number of satisfied patients, the greater the influence of TCM.
The demonstrative hospitals mushrooming all over the world will give impetus to the development of the industry of TCM.