Guest guest Posted June 5, 2000 Report Share Posted June 5, 2000 BTW, this article is required reading at Heiner Fruehauf's CCM program http://www.phainon.com/cmd.html Porkert/ Debased (CMD) // Debased/Back Cover Four sagacious and rousing articles, originally published in China since the late 1970ies, - a Science in Its Own Right The Quandary of A Close-up of in Today's People's Republic Chinese Medical Classics and the Future of Chinese Medicine as a Scientific Discipline, are here brought up to date by the essay The Debasement of , written in 1997. In these texts the internationally acknowledged author soberly assesses the situation of a shining tradition which today, due to the erosion of corresponding standards in China or by their continued deficit in the West, is in danger of total eclipse. Manfred B. Porkert (Man Xibo), born 1933 in the Czech Republic, had received his Ph. D. degree in Chinese studies at the Paris Sorbonne in 1957; in 1969, his Professor's thesis ("Habilitation") was accepted at Munich University (Germany) by the Medical and Arts Faculties. After serving there as reader and professor of Chinese studies including the theoretical foundations of Chinese medicine until 1995, he is now Professor emeritus of that University. Porkert has published some 400-odd essays and translations on topics of Chinese medicine, Chinese science and Chinese literature and a comprehensive line of textbooks on all major aspects of Chinese medicine (diagnostics, pharmacology, prescriptions, acu-moxi-therapy, premoprehension (= manual therapy), as well as a number of book-length translations and books for the general reader. Porkert had served as visiting professor at the C.G. Jung Institute of Zürich in 1961, at the Paris Medical University René Décartes(during the Winter term of 1977/78, at the Université Nîmes-Montpellier; and he has extensively lectured at academic institutions in Europe, Asia (China, Japan, Pakistan, South-East-Asia), Australia, Russia and North America. He is founder and honourary president of of the International Society (SMS), and, since 1989, Executive Editor-in-Chief of the International Normative Dictionary of (INDCM) of the China Academy of , Beijing. ISBN 3 - 89520 - 013 - 1 //The Debasement of (Introductory Essay, 1997) © 1995 by Phainon Editions & Media GmbH For reasons discussed at length elsewhere, 1 Chinese medicine, as all other scientific disciplines of China, has first emerged and slowly attained to mature accomplishment in the garb of a craft, an artisanal tradition. This development, for more than two millennia and well into our 20th century, had taken place, as far as methodology is concerned, within the impregnable sphere of Chinese culture. So never had there been felt the need to abstract its theoretical rationale, or the incentive to claim a prominent status of medical "craftsmen" above that of other professions. Since the 19th century, the influx and example of Western civilisation, blatantly in the beginning, insidiously in the end, has shaken Chinese culture in its foundations and shown itself as a challenge never before encountered during four thousand years of Chinese history. As any major transformation of human civilisation or society, this one has entailed political and intellectual chaos as well as the confusion of standards and goals. Chinese medicine is not exempt from this condition. Although initially it has stood up remarkably well against considerable odds, the relaxation of exterior menace and the acceptance of the principal rules of competition with Western civilisation have produced a strange insouciance, indifference which, combined with the intrinsic pragmatism of the Chinese mind, now rapidly makes for a debasement and disintegration of Chinese medicine. At present three major factors work together at the debasement of Chinese medicine. The first, most visible and much dreaded, is the apparent power, in appearance overwhelming and universal, of orthodox Western medicine. The second, wide-spread and much publicised in all industrialised Western countries, is the acclaim and interest Chinese medicine gets from practictioners of what is called "alternative" medicine. Ant the third, by far the most serious, menace is the bungling and degradation Chinese medicine suffers from some of its most prominent and vocal representatives in China proper. Although it would be overly facetious to call Western medicine a paper tiger, much of its outward pomp and circumstance dwindles to fairly modest proportions as soon as we examine the relationship between the resources of human effort, time and money invested, and the actual curative results and satisfaction achieved. There is actually a striking disproportion between these two and hence not only political discomfort but also much internal debate, criticism and self-questioning due to these circumstances. And, above all, if the success of Western medicine essentially rests upon borrowed methodology and borrowed fame,2 it can never overwhelm, replace or oust a medical practice which, even if only to a moderate extent, relies upon truly intrinsic rational methodology - as Chinese medicine had in the past and can to an even better degree do so in the future. So frankly I think that there is no need of any debate and frenzied discussion of this danger or threat. A much more serious threat is present in the huge army of "alternative" healers, practitioners of Chinese medicine whose existence and activity is accepted, even applauded by the most contrary parties: to start with, by the advocates of new age and nature medicine, by the preachers of holistic medicine, by the apostles of soft, non-invasive medicine, by the representatives of combined Chinese and Western medicine (zhongxi jiehe) in China and, for entirely different reasons, by the representatives of the orthodox establishment of Western medicine. Quite evidently such diametrically opposed interests and creeds can come together only upon completely false assumptions or quite anodyne and insignificant activity. This second brand of Chinese medicine here referred to, by sheer numbers is probably the most widely practiced and best "known" and accepted kind of Chinese medicine in the world today. However, this is so because of the innocuous, naive and simplistic nature of its methods and terms. Except for the vague claim of being "holistic" - which nobody bothers or knows how to explain - it steers clear of any theory or method that even faintly might be suspected of being systematic or scientific. Its effectiveness with the patient depends essentially upon the human attitude and quality of the healers, their readiness to listen to the patient, to talk with the patient, to touch the patient. And Chinese medicine, in most cases reduced to some simple techniques of acupuncture or premoprehension, then serves as a trendy ritual to impress the gullible or at least uninformed patients. This lets us understand why Western medicine is quite comfortable with this brand of acupuncture and Chinese medicine which, not in ages, will ever present the least challenge to its own position, but which, on the contrary, may always be counted on to produce and provide examples of the ineffectivenes and if needed, even of the "danger" of alternative treatments. By far the most fundamental and deadly threat to Chinese medicine comes from the political and hence didactic and methodological stance taken toward what is still called Chinese medicine (zhongyi) in China proper. This attitude originally was conditioned by the, at first sight, so impressive feats of Western medicine and Western doctors in China late in the 19th and in the early years of the 20th century. It was abetted by the professional ignorance of decision-making politicians who did not have the least idea, not an inkling of what produced these effects and these impressions, and in what consisted the methodological and practical difference between Western and Chinese medicine. And it is today implemented by a new breed and generation of teachers and physicians who call themselves zhongyi ("physicians of Chinese medicine") but who, in fact, never in their lives and their practice have ever gotten in touch with what Chinese medicine had achieved and can achieve today and in the future. And, just as little as their predecessors, have they ever been given the least cue to reflect the reasons for the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of any kind of medical therapy. So what we see in China today is ever larger, ever more impressive hospitals and "big schools"3 teaching what, by name, is supposed to be Chinese medicine, yet which, in fact, is an eclectic, that is indiscriminate and constantly more ineffective mixture of Chinese and Western empirical medicine - with an external smattering of Western terminology to suggest some kind of trendy scientific aspirations. And those huge institutions are totally at the mercy of and dependent upon the input and existence of Western medicine. Not only are all "seriously ill patients" referred to Western style hospitals and physicians; the Chinese medicine establishment is simply maintained as a sham structure to make the Chinese, rightly proud of their culture and its priceless contribution to human civilisation and knowledge, believe that such traditions are still maintained and carried on. Below this thin layer of non-committal modern Western scientific labels we find growing, even stark ignorance about the most elementary facts of Chinese diagnosis and treatment. "Feeling the pulse", if it is still undertaken for ritual purposes, is not based upon any kind of stringent and consistent instructions. If I go to a purportedly exemplary modern hosptial of Chinese medicine today, I shall encounter apprentices who cannot even find the site of a pulse, let alone arrive at any kind of rational assessment with any degreee of precision. And, if we examine the most recent textbooks or glance at professional publications, we shall look in vain for any consistent and convincing statement of an authentic Chinese diagnosis which, in its simplicity and transparency, immediately provides the stringent clues for treatment and prognosis. Instead we meet with a hodgepodge of Western terminology which anyone conversant with the methodology of (Western) medicine would perceive as a non-committal makeshift labels put on fuzzy or totally unknown disease mechanisms. And this obnubilation, this dismantling and stultification then is called "adjustment to international standards of medical science." In the meantime, and what had not been apparent twenty or thirty years ago, even the teaching and practice of Chinese pharmacotherapy and the apothecary's trade is feeling the effects. And I am not referring to those alternative quacks and dumbsters who speak of and recommend "herbs" like Poria, Calomel or Eupolyphaga, but to the reputable professors at Chinese and Western scientific institutions who put out under their own names huge compendia of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, yet fail to name only the most important and most frequently used drugs of Chinese medicine; and who, of course, will consider themselves accomplished experts by restricting themselves to a chemical analysis of known material components - blatantly ignoring what the Chinese scientists had sometimes taken two thousand years to define precisely: the pharmacodynamic effects of an integrate native drug. So is it a surprise that the practice and application of Chinese medicine, in China as elsewhere in the world, has become an utterly irresponsible and ineffective procedure? As I have explained at length and repeatedly,4 Chinese medicine in its true sense had dealt with and been a healing technique of present, that is, actual disorders, whose symptoms were directly and clearly perceived by the patient. In consequence, the treatment of these disorders required their positive perception and acknowledgement, and this included the acknowledgement of the patient's view of his disorder or illness. Western medicine, not because of ill will but because of a methodological shrinkage of the perceptive horizon and its resulting constraints, never accepts these statements of the patient at face value. They must be reinterpreted or completely set aside, ignored in order to arrive at the proper kind of diagnosis. So, the practitioner of Western medicine always feels and and is accepted as the expert, and the patient as the naive and believing layman. In China any moderately educated and intelligent patient could and would reflect upon the recommendation a doctor whom he had "consulted" for treatment. Today, also in China, even those people who consider themselves more or less educated will, without second thoughts, submit to a doctor's expert opinion. Today, Chinese medicine in China, and still more so in other parts of the world, in America or Europe, does not carry any social or legal responsibility. Never in recent decades have I heard of a case in China or in the United States where a so-called Chinese doctor or a "doctor of oriental medicine" was taken to account for lack of theoretical or practical competence in the methods of Chinese medicine! The only incompetence entailing legal pursuit is if he fails to perceive that the case he has before himself is slipping away, getting out of control - and hence must be treated with "real medicine" that is, referred to a Western physician or hospital. So in truth, in China as well as elsewhere, what today bears the label of Chinese medicine is hiding behind the big back of Western medicine. - If such is not the ultimate debasement of Chinese medicine, what is it? I am not writing as a prophet but as a scientist, a methodologist. So, even though I am saddened to learn that cautions, predictions I had put forward twenty, even forty years ago, have been confirmed by actual reality, this sadness will not mislead me into proclaiming the actual demise of Chinese medicine or, even more absurd, predicting the inevitable collapse or extinction of Chinese civilisation or of the Chinese race. Still, I am convinced that one (not the only and perhapts not even the most important) factor for the incomparable resilience and power of biological regeneration of the Han-race and, in consequence, of the Chinese nation, was the extraordinary true and just perception of nature and hence of the natural requirements of the human constitution - as expressed through Chinese medicine, Chinese diet, Chinese cooking, Chinese landscaping, Chinese architecture, Chinese clothing . . . If the essence of these traditions is abandoned, this will not spell the extinction of the Chinese population but, at worst, a demographic drop of a few percent per decade - an adjustment welcome to all who view human beings as Laozi had done, as chugou (straw puppets) or, by a modern term, as stochastic units. It is also true that such change spells a tremendous amount of individual suffering to an untold number of human individuals completely beyond the ken of stochastic perception. Early in the seventies, when I spent some time in Taibei, there existed only a single Western style bakery in that city of almost two million; and in provincial cities of Taiwan, nobody could even imagine how such a shop might have customers. When I came to visit a close friend in a small provincial town of Taiwan in 1991, it was at first sight totally impossible to obtain anything but an American style or European style breakfast. Not even the receptionist at the hotel could suggest where I might find a Chinese style breakfast that I was used to. In the end, I got help from a cleaning woman who happened to eavesdrop on my enquiries. She directed me to a spot where indeed traditional Chinese snacks were available 24 hours around the clock. So I went there and had a breakfast - in the company of garbage collectors and prostitutes. And the situation is not different on the continent. At Hangzhou, the dream destination of Chinese tourists, the drinks most in demand in restaurants, teahouses, traditional gazebos and snack stations are not any one of the variety of famous local teas but, instead, Western style beer, coke and instant coffee with cream. Compared to other parts of the world, China as a region and a political entity, had been privileged in history despite the setbacks during the 19th and 20th centuries, by enjoying peace, stability, health and wealth for longer periods of time and for a greater number of individuals than had been the case elsewhere on this globe; and now, at the end of the 20th century, most Chinese are again experiencing conditions of material abundance significantly above that in most other countries including those of the industrialised West.5 So perhaps for a time it can do without Chinese medicine, the kind of health care that had contributed to making it what it is today. But perhaps also, other nations in greater distress and hence more keenly aware of their unsatisfied needs, will take up the message and continue a methodology which China has abandoned. Stein, 3rd of March 1997 Notes: 1 Josepf Needham, Science and Civilisation in China - History of Scientific Thought and throughout his magnum opus; Manfred Porkert, Life Science - a Paradigmatic Outline and the articles reprinted after this Introductory Essay. 2 I refer to the methodology of natural science intrinsically foreign to the solution of medical problems 3 Daxue - the Western translation of daxue by 'university' is in this case erroneous and perfectly misleading: those Chinese daxue essentially concentrate on courses and programs related to medical disciplines. There is no attempt and no evidence of a complete complement of all the sciences and the arts - as the Western term of universitas emphatically implies! 4 At great length in Chinese Medical Diagnostics - the Comprehensive Textbook, pp. 24ff. 5 Already at the beginning of the 90ties, I had stated that in China more food is thrown away than would be needed to feed the entire Indian subcontinent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 5, 2000 Report Share Posted June 5, 2000 Please refrain from making incorrect remarks regarding Heiner Fruehauf's CCM program, of which I am a graduate. Porkert's work is not required reading; although I can say that I am familiar with the facts Porkert writed about in his book, Debased. I am familiar with these concepts because I heard them straight from the my Chinese professors! I find it remarkable that you (and others in this forum) obviously misunderstand the CCM concept. You disagree that there is a distinct difference between TCM and CCM, but at the same time say that you believe CCM is just TCM practiced at its highest level. ??? There is so much that can be said on the TCM vs. CCM debate. For now, I will only make one statement due to personal time constraints. The debate, first of all, should not be seen as a this versus that -one over the other- issue. Dr. Fruehauf is a trailblazer in the Chinese medicine field; one who sees a problem and tries to make things better. That's all. It's not a pride/ "I'm better than you" issue. Look at it for what it is and leave YOUR pride behind for a change (and I'm not just directing this statement to you Todd). Anyone having any questions regarding the CCM program at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, OR, I am available and would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thad Jacobs, N. D. cha Monday, June 05, 2000 3:15 PM chinese medicine debased BTW, this article is required reading at Heiner Fruehauf's CCM programhttp://www.phainon.com/cmd.html------Failed tests, classes skipped, forgotten locker combinations. Remember the good 'ol dayshttp://click./1/4053/9/_/542111/_/960243377/------Chronic Diseases Heal - Chinese Herbs Can Help Porkert/ Debased (CMD) // Debased/Back Cover Four sagacious and rousing articles, originally published in China since the late 1970ies,• - a Science in Its Own Right• The Quandary of • A Close-up of in Today's People'sRepublic• Chinese Medical Classics and the Future of ChineseMedicine as a Scientific Discipline,are here brought up to date by the essayThe Debasement of , written in 1997.In these texts the internationally acknowledged author soberly assesses the situation of a shining tradition which today, due to the erosion of corresponding standards in China or by their continued deficit in the West, is in danger of total eclipse. Manfred B. Porkert (Man Xibo), born 1933 in the Czech Republic, had received his Ph. D. degree in Chinese studies at the Paris Sorbonne in 1957; in 1969, his Professor's thesis ("Habilitation") was accepted at Munich University (Germany) by the Medical and Arts Faculties. After serving there as reader and professor of Chinese studies including the theoretical foundations of Chinese medicine until 1995, he is now Professor emeritus of that University.Porkert has published some 400-odd essays and translations on topics of Chinese medicine, Chinese science and Chinese literature and a comprehensive line of textbooks on all major aspects of Chinese medicine (diagnostics, pharmacology, prescriptions, acu-moxi-therapy, premoprehension (= manual therapy), as well as a number of book-length translations and books for the general reader.Porkert had served as visiting professor at the C.G. Jung Institute of Zürich in 1961, at the Paris Medical University René Décartes(during the Winter term of 1977/78, at the Université Nîmes-Montpellier; and he has extensively lectured at academic institutions in Europe, Asia (China, Japan, Pakistan, South-East-Asia), Australia, Russia and North America. He is founder and honourary president of of the International Society (SMS), and, since 1989, Executive Editor-in-Chief of the International Normative Dictionary of (INDCM) of the China Academy of , Beijing. ISBN 3 - 89520 - 013 - 1 //The Debasement of (Introductory Essay, 1997) © 1995 by Phainon Editions & Media GmbH For reasons discussed at length elsewhere, 1 Chinese medicine, as all other scientific disciplines of China, has first emerged and slowly attained to mature accomplishment in the garb of a craft, an artisanal tradition. This development, for more than two millennia and well into our 20th century, had taken place, as far as methodology is concerned, within the impregnable sphere of Chinese culture. So never had there been felt the need to abstract its theoretical rationale, or the incentive to claim a prominent status of medical "craftsmen" above that of other professions.Since the 19th century, the influx and example of Western civilisation, blatantly in the beginning, insidiously in the end, has shaken Chinese culture in its foundations and shown itself as a challenge never before encountered during four thousand years of Chinese history.As any major transformation of human civilisation or society, this one has entailed political and intellectual chaos as well as the confusion of standards and goals. Chinese medicine is not exempt from this condition. Although initially it has stood up remarkably well against considerable odds, the relaxation of exterior menace and the acceptance of the principal rules of competition with Western civilisation have produced a strange insouciance, indifference which, combined with the intrinsic pragmatism of the Chinese mind, now rapidly makes for a debasement and disintegration of Chinese medicine.At present three major factors work together at the debasement of Chinese medicine.The first, most visible and much dreaded, is the apparent power, in appearance overwhelming and universal, of orthodox Western medicine.The second, wide-spread and much publicised in all industrialised Western countries, is the acclaim and interest Chinese medicine gets from practictioners of what is called "alternative" medicine.Ant the third, by far the most serious, menace is the bungling and degradation Chinese medicine suffers from some of its most prominent and vocal representatives in China proper.Although it would be overly facetious to call Western medicine a paper tiger, much of its outward pomp and circumstance dwindles to fairly modest proportions as soon as we examine the relationship between the resources of human effort, time and money invested, and the actual curative results and satisfaction achieved. There is actually a striking disproportion between these two and hence not only political discomfort but also much internal debate, criticism and self-questioning due to these circumstances. And, above all, if the success of Western medicine essentially rests upon borrowed methodology and borrowed fame,2 it can never overwhelm, replace or oust a medical practice which, even if only to a moderate extent, relies upon truly intrinsic rational methodology - as Chinese medicine had in the past and can to an even better degree do so in the future. So frankly I think that there is no need of any debate and frenzied discussion of this danger or threat.A much more serious threat is present in the huge army of "alternative" healers, practitioners of Chinese medicine whose existence and activity is accepted, even applauded by the most contrary parties: to start with, by the advocates of new age and nature medicine, by the preachers of holistic medicine, by the apostles of soft, non-invasive medicine, by the representatives of combined Chinese and Western medicine (zhongxi jiehe) in China and, for entirely different reasons, by the representatives of the orthodox establishment of Western medicine. Quite evidently such diametrically opposed interests and creeds can come together only upon completely false assumptions or quite anodyne and insignificant activity. This second brand of Chinese medicine here referred to, by sheer numbers is probably the most widely practiced and best "known" and accepted kind of Chinese medicine in the world today. However, this is so because of the innocuous, naive and simplistic nature of its methods and terms. Except for the vague claim of being "holistic" - which nobody bothers or knows how to explain - it steers clear of any theory or method that even faintly might be suspected of being systematic or scientific. Its effectiveness with the patient depends essentially upon the human attitude and quality of the healers, their readiness to listen to the patient, to talk with the patient, to touch the patient. And Chinese medicine, in most cases reduced to some simple techniques of acupuncture or premoprehension, then serves as a trendy ritual to impress the gullible or at least uninformed patients. This lets us understand why Western medicine is quite comfortable with this brand of acupuncture and Chinese medicine which, not in ages, will ever present the least challenge to its own position, but which, on the contrary, may always be counted on to produce and provide examples of the ineffectivenes and if needed, even of the "danger" of alternative treatments.By far the most fundamental and deadly threat to Chinese medicine comes from the political and hence didactic and methodological stance taken toward what is still called Chinese medicine (zhongyi) in China proper. This attitude originally was conditioned by the, at first sight, so impressive feats of Western medicine and Western doctors in China late in the 19th and in the early years of the 20th century. It was abetted by the professional ignorance of decision-making politicians who did not have the least idea, not an inkling of what produced these effects and these impressions, and in what consisted the methodological and practical difference between Western and Chinese medicine. And it is today implemented by a new breed and generation of teachers and physicians who call themselves zhongyi ("physicians of Chinese medicine") but who, in fact, never in their lives and their practice have ever gotten in touch with what Chinese medicine had achieved and can achieve today and in the future. And, just as little as their predecessors, have they ever been given the least cue to reflect the reasons for the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of any kind of medical therapy.So what we see in China today is ever larger, ever more impressive hospitals and "big schools"3 teaching what, by name, is supposed to be Chinese medicine, yet which, in fact, is an eclectic, that is indiscriminate and constantly more ineffective mixture of Chinese and Western empirical medicine - with an external smattering of Western terminology to suggest some kind of trendy scientific aspirations. And those huge institutions are totally at the mercy of and dependent upon the input and existence of Western medicine. Not only are all "seriously ill patients" referred to Western style hospitals and physicians; the Chinese medicine establishment is simply maintained as a sham structure to make the Chinese, rightly proud of their culture and its priceless contribution to human civilisation and knowledge, believe that such traditions are still maintained and carried on. Below this thin layer of non-committal modern Western scientific labels we find growing, even stark ignorance about the most elementary facts of Chinese diagnosis and treatment. "Feeling the pulse", if it is still undertaken for ritual purposes, is not based upon any kind of stringent and consistent instructions. If I go to a purportedly exemplary modern hosptial of Chinese medicine today, I shall encounter apprentices who cannot even find the site of a pulse, let alone arrive at any kind of rational assessment with any degreee of precision. And, if we examine the most recent textbooks or glance at professional publications, we shall look in vain for any consistent and convincing statement of an authentic Chinese diagnosis which, in its simplicity and transparency, immediately provides the stringent clues for treatment and prognosis. Instead we meet with a hodgepodge of Western terminology which anyone conversant with the methodology of (Western) medicine would perceive as a non-committal makeshift labels put on fuzzy or totally unknown disease mechanisms. And this obnubilation, this dismantling and stultification then is called "adjustment to international standards of medical science."In the meantime, and what had not been apparent twenty or thirty years ago, even the teaching and practice of Chinese pharmacotherapy and the apothecary's trade is feeling the effects. And I am not referring to those alternative quacks and dumbsters who speak of and recommend "herbs" like Poria, Calomel or Eupolyphaga, but to the reputable professors at Chinese and Western scientific institutions who put out under their own names huge compendia of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, yet fail to name only the most important and most frequently used drugs of Chinese medicine; and who, of course, will consider themselves accomplished experts by restricting themselves to a chemical analysis of known material components - blatantly ignoring what the Chinese scientists had sometimes taken two thousand years to define precisely: the pharmacodynamic effects of an integrate native drug.So is it a surprise that the practice and application of Chinese medicine, in China as elsewhere in the world, has become an utterly irresponsible and ineffective procedure?As I have explained at length and repeatedly,4 Chinese medicine in its true sense had dealt with and been a healing technique of present, that is, actual disorders, whose symptoms were directly and clearly perceived by the patient. In consequence, the treatment of these disorders required their positive perception and acknowledgement, and this included the acknowledgement of the patient's view of his disorder or illness. Western medicine, not because of ill will but because of a methodological shrinkage of the perceptive horizon and its resulting constraints, never accepts these statements of the patient at face value. They must be reinterpreted or completely set aside, ignored in order to arrive at the proper kind of diagnosis. So, the practitioner of Western medicine always feels and and is accepted as the expert, and the patient as the naive and believing layman. In China any moderately educated and intelligent patient could and would reflect upon the recommendation a doctor whom he had "consulted" for treatment. Today, also in China, even those people who consider themselves more or less educated will, without second thoughts, submit to a doctor's expert opinion.Today, Chinese medicine in China, and still more so in other parts of the world, in America or Europe, does not carry any social or legal responsibility. Never in recent decades have I heard of a case in China or in the United States where a so-called Chinese doctor or a "doctor of oriental medicine" was taken to account for lack of theoretical or practical competence in the methods of Chinese medicine! The only incompetence entailing legal pursuit is if he fails to perceive that the case he has before himself is slipping away, getting out of control - and hence must be treated with "real medicine" that is, referred to a Western physician or hospital. So in truth, in China as well as elsewhere, what today bears the label of Chinese medicine is hiding behind the big back of Western medicine. - If such is not the ultimate debasement of Chinese medicine, what is it?I am not writing as a prophet but as a scientist, a methodologist. So, even though I am saddened to learn that cautions, predictions I had put forward twenty, even forty years ago, have been confirmed by actual reality, this sadness will not mislead me into proclaiming the actual demise of Chinese medicine or, even more absurd, predicting the inevitable collapse or extinction of Chinese civilisation or of the Chinese race. Still, I am convinced that one (not the only and perhapts not even the most important) factor for the incomparable resilience and power of biological regeneration of the Han-race and, in consequence, of the Chinese nation, was the extraordinary true and just perception of nature and hence of the natural requirements of the human constitution - as expressed through Chinese medicine, Chinese diet, Chinese cooking, Chinese landscaping, Chinese architecture, Chinese clothing . . . If the essence of these traditions is abandoned, this will not spell the extinction of the Chinese population but, at worst, a demographic drop of a few percent per decade - an adjustment welcome to all who view human beings as Laozi had done, as chugou (straw puppets) or, by a modern term, as stochastic units. It is also true that such change spells a tremendous amount of individual suffering to an untold number of human individuals completely beyond the ken of stochastic perception. Early in the seventies, when I spent some time in Taibei, there existed only a single Western style bakery in that city of almost two million; and in provincial cities of Taiwan, nobody could even imagine how such a shop might have customers. When I came to visit a close friend in a small provincial town of Taiwan in 1991, it was at first sight totally impossible to obtain anything but an American style or European style breakfast. Not even the receptionist at the hotel could suggest where I might find a Chinese style breakfast that I was used to. In the end, I got help from a cleaning woman who happened to eavesdrop on my enquiries. She directed me to a spot where indeed traditional Chinese snacks were available 24 hours around the clock. So I went there and had a breakfast - in the company of garbage collectors and prostitutes.And the situation is not different on the continent. At Hangzhou, the dream destination of Chinese tourists, the drinks most in demand in restaurants, teahouses, traditional gazebos and snack stations are not any one of the variety of famous local teas but, instead, Western style beer, coke and instant coffee with cream.Compared to other parts of the world, China as a region and a political entity, had been privileged in history despite the setbacks during the 19th and 20th centuries, by enjoying peace, stability, health and wealth for longer periods of time and for a greater number of individuals than had been the case elsewhere on this globe; and now, at the end of the 20th century, most Chinese are again experiencing conditions of material abundance significantly above that in most other countries including those of the industrialised West.5 So perhaps for a time it can do without Chinese medicine, the kind of health care that had contributed to making it what it is today. But perhaps also, other nations in greater distress and hence more keenly aware of their unsatisfied needs, will take up the message and continue a methodology which China has abandoned. Stein, 3rd of March 1997 Notes:1 Josepf Needham, Science and Civilisation in China - History of Scientific Thought and throughout his magnum opus; Manfred Porkert, Life Science - a Paradigmatic Outline and the articles reprinted after this Introductory Essay.2 I refer to the methodology of natural science intrinsically foreign to the solution of medical problems 3 Daxue - the Western translation of daxue by 'university' is in this case erroneous and perfectly misleading: those Chinese daxue essentially concentrate on courses and programs related to medical disciplines. There is no attempt and no evidence of a complete complement of all the sciences and the arts - as the Western term of universitas emphatically implies!4 At great length in Chinese Medical Diagnostics - the Comprehensive Textbook, pp. 24ff.5 Already at the beginning of the 90ties, I had stated that in China more food is thrown away than would be needed to feed the entire Indian subcontinent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 5, 2000 Report Share Posted June 5, 2000 Thad, A couple of things: 1) Your e-mail came in as a jumble of jibberish with lots of nbsps. 2) Your tone is attacking, defensive and condescending at the same time. . ..Todd is a great admirer of Heiner's work, and I have only ever heard him say positive things about his work. We know he is a trailblazer, and CCM is a wonderful thing. 3) Perhaps he USED to require the article. . . .we do know Heiner admires it. 4) When responding to an e-mail, you could delete the body of the article, as it is not necessary for anyone to read it again as part of a reply. > Please refrain from making incorrect remarks regarding Heiner Fruehauf's CCM program, of which I am a graduate. & nbsp; Porkert's work is not required reading; although I can say that I am familiar with the facts Porkert writed about in his book, Debased. & nbsp; I am familiar with these concepts because I heard them straight from the my Chinese professors! & nbsp; & nbsp;I find it remarkable that you (and others in this forum) obviously misunderstand the CCM concept. & nbsp; & nbsp;You disagree that there is a distinct difference between TCM and CCM, but at the same time say that you believe CCM is just TCM practiced at its highest level. & nbsp; ??? There is so much that can be said on the TCM vs. CCM debate. & nbsp; For now, I will only make one statement due to personal time constraints. & nbsp; The debate, first of all, should not be seen as a this versus that -one over the other- issue. & nbsp; Dr. Fruehauf & nbsp;is a trailblazer in the Chinese medicine field; one who sees a problem and tries to make things better. & nbsp; That's all. & nbsp; It's not a pride/ "I'm better than you" issue. & nbsp; Look at it for what it is and leave YOUR pride behind for a change (and I'm not just directing this statement to you Todd). Anyone having any questions & nbsp;regarding the CCM program at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, OR, I am available and would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thad Jacobs, N. D. > <herb-t (AT) spiritone (DOT) com title=herb-t (AT) spiritone (DOT) com>Todd cha Monday, June 05, 2000 3:15 PM chinese medicine debased BTW, this article is required reading at Heiner Fruehauf's CCM programhttp://www.phainon.com/cmd.html------Failed tests, classes skipped, forgotten locker combinations. Remember the good 'ol dayshttp://click./1/4053/9/_/542111/_/960243377/------Chronic Diseases Heal - Chinese Herbs Can Help > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 5, 2000 Report Share Posted June 5, 2000 Since you've posted the entire article, I've gone through it and made specific notations of questions and criticisms, for the benefit of those who are interested. As my critique turns out to be rather severe, I must add that I am prepared to defend my critcisms and would welcome the chance to debate the author in a public forum in order to bring some clarity to a subject that I must say has been significantly muddied up by this article. Again I want to point out that I am well aware of numerous very real problems that either exist or loom above the field of Chinese medical education in mainland China. In no way do I seek to squelch debate of these problems and related issues. But the approach taken in the following article does a grave disservice to this important discussion and in my estimate constitutes its own debasement of the subject. //The Debasement of (Introductory Essay, 1997) © 1995 by Phainon Editions & Media GmbH For reasons discussed at length elsewhere, 1 Chinese medicine, as all other scientific disciplines of China, has first emerged and slowly attained to mature accomplishment in the garb of a craft, an artisanal tradition. This development, for more than two millennia and well into our 20th century, had taken place, as far as methodology is concerned, within the impregnable sphere of Chinese culture. The phrase "impregnable sphere of Chinese culture" is both enigmatic and problematic. Chinese culture, far from being impregnable, has been a prolific source of generative ideas for thousands of years. The Chinese have entered into social and intellectual intercourse with virtually all who sought them out, certainly from the Sui and Tang periods onwards, and probably for centuries before that time (5th-10th century C.E.). I'm just not sure what the author is driving at with this epithet. The Chinese freely gave up such epochal, seminal ideas such as magnetism, the polarity of the earth and the compass; gunpowder; papermaking and movable type AND Chinese medicine. Hardly the sort of behavior of an impregnable culture over the timespan the author evokes. So never had there been felt the need to abstract its theoretical rationale, or the incentive to claim a prominent status of medical "craftsmen" above that of other professions. Again, not clear what the point really is here. The Chinese obviously have felt this need to abstract the theoretical rationale of their traditional approach to medicine. We find it addressed again and again in classics from virtually every era, dynasty, and epoch. And Chinese medicine has traditionally been held in such high regard that according to most accounts, when the first emperor ordered all books to be gathered and burned, he spared the medical books. Chapter Five of Who Can Ride the Dragon gives a broad overview of Chinese medical history throughout the ages, and one certainly gets the general impression from this history that doctors of Chinese medicine have long been held in high esteem...at least the good ones. The great ones are worshipped like gods: Zhang Zhong Jing, Hua Tuo, Sun Si Miao, to name a few who literally tower over other professions. The traditional view of Chinese medicine holds that it is the germ, the essence of Chinese culture. Since the 19th century, the influx and example of Western civilisation, blatantly in the beginning, insidiously in the end, has shaken Chinese culture in its foundations and shown itself as a challenge never before encountered during four thousand years of Chinese history. This is a particularly curious reading of history. China has time and again been overrun by foreigners, often Central Asian horsemen, and fallen under the rule of alien governments. This happens on a roughly 800 year cycle, the capital osciallating between north and south and hegemony over the Central Kingdom slipping into and out of Chinese hands. Certainly the challenges of modernity have manifested themselves in China as they have virtually everywhere on earth. So once again, I'm not quite sure what point is really being made here, as the same statement could be made more or less about every country on earth, i.e. that humans in all lands have been shaken to their foundations by the ascendancy of modern Western civilisation. Just look at England! or Germany! or the good old US of A. As any major transformation of human civilisation or society, this one has entailed political and intellectual chaos as well as the confusion of standards and goals. Chinese medicine is not exempt from this condition. Although initially it has stood up remarkably well against considerable odds, the relaxation of exterior menace and the acceptance of the principal rules of competition with Western civilisation have produced a strange insouciance, indifference which, combined with the intrinsic pragmatism of the Chinese mind, now rapidly makes for a debasement and disintegration of Chinese medicine. I've read this bit over five or six times, and I just don't know what it means. At present three major factors work together at the debasement of Chinese medicine.The first, most visible and much dreaded, is the apparent power, in appearance overwhelming and universal, of orthodox Western medicine. If the point here is that modern medicine from the West tended to supplant native traditional means from the time of its introduction into China onwards, then I understand and agree with this statement. I would just point out that pragmatic as the Chinese are, they tended to incorporate any means that were demonstrated as efficacious. Remember that Chinese medicine was not particularly identified as Chinese medicine prior to its juxtaposition with modern medicine. At many times in history, the Chinese have been recipients of foreign influences that have left their traces on the understanding and pracice of medicine. The Indians from the 1st century on brought with them medicinals and ideology that figured in the long term development of Chinese medicine. The second, wide-spread and much publicised in all industrialised Western countries, is the acclaim and interest Chinese medicine gets from practictioners of what is called "alternative" medicine. This statement is also not altogether clear to me. I think he's saying that somehow the attention and interest of non Chinese in Chinese medicine creates some sort of negative feedback that serves to debase Chinese medicine in China. I have earlier commented on one such mechanism, i.e. the disproportinate growth of acupuncture departments in Chinese medical colleges and universities over the past twenty years or so owing to the increase in demand on the part of foreigners with foreign currency to be trained in this discipline. Ant the third, by far the most serious, menace is the bungling and degradation Chinese medicine suffers from some of its most prominent and vocal representatives in China proper. This statement may well be true, and I was disappointed that the paper doesn't name who these people are and what exactly their bungling and degradation has been. It makes sense, doesn't it, that those involved in the establishment of an academic and professional discipline would be the ones making not only the progress but the mistakes? What this statement as well as the overall tone of this paper gets quite wrong is the enormous progress that has been made in resurrecting the whole system of traditional Chinese medicine from its near extinction at the hands of the Nationalist government in the 1910's and 20's. The lack of specifics here makes it impossible to know exactly what he is referring to. Although it would be overly facetious to call Western medicine a paper tiger, much of its outward pomp and circumstance dwindles to fairly modest proportions as soon as we examine the relationship between the resources of human effort, time and money invested, and the actual curative results and satisfaction achieved. There is actually a striking disproportion between these two and hence not only political discomfort but also much internal debate, criticism and self-questioning due to these circumstances. And, above all, if the success of Western medicine essentially rests upon borrowed methodology and borrowed fame,2 it can never overwhelm, replace or oust a medical practice which, even if only to a moderate extent, relies upon truly intrinsic rational methodology - as Chinese medicine had in the past and can to an even better degree do so in the future. So frankly I think that there is no need of any debate and frenzied discussion of this danger or threat. Talk about frenzied discussion. I have a hard time once again following exactly what the point is. Western medicine is not powerful? It cannot take the place of Chinese medicine? It is based on other methods? Chinese medicine has its own methodology? What is it that doesn't need to be debated? A much more serious threat is present in the huge army of "alternative" healers, practitioners of Chinese medicine whose existence and activity is accepted, even applauded by the most contrary parties: to start with, by the advocates of new age and nature medicine, by the preachers of holistic medicine, by the apostles of soft, non-invasive medicine, by the representatives of combined Chinese and Western medicine (zhongxi jiehe) in China and, for entirely different reasons, by the representatives of the orthodox establishment of Western medicine. Quite evidently such diametrically opposed interests and creeds can come together only upon completely false assumptions or quite anodyne and insignificant activity. Huh? This one just passed right by me without making the slightest impression. What is the point? This second brand of Chinese medicine here referred to, by sheer numbers is probably the most widely practiced and best "known" and accepted kind of Chinese medicine in the world today. However, this is so because of the innocuous, naive and simplistic nature of its methods and terms. Except for the vague claim of being "holistic" - which nobody bothers or knows how to explain - it steers clear of any theory or method that even faintly might be suspected of being systematic or scientific. Its effectiveness with the patient depends essentially upon the human attitude and quality of the healers, their readiness to listen to the patient, to talk with the patient, to touch the patient. And Chinese medicine, in most cases reduced to some simple techniques of acupuncture or premoprehension, then serves as a trendy ritual to impress the gullible or at least uninformed patients. This lets us understand why Western medicine is quite comfortable with this brand of acupuncture and Chinese medicine which, not in ages, will ever present the least challenge to its own position, but which, on the contrary, may always be counted on to produce and provide examples of the ineffectivenes and if needed, even of the "danger" of alternative treatments. If, and this is a big if, I understand what this is all about, he seems to be saying that Western medicine (as if it were a unified consciousness) accepts an inept rendition of Chinese medicine because that makes it easier to dispense with. This strikes me as a cyncism that outdoes even my own. It also makes me think of all the sincere and interested and intelligent and compassionate MDs, Western doctors and researchers I have met and known who genuinely wish to explore the subject of Chinese medicine not to learn its weaknesses to be able to shoot it down but to borrow its strengths so that they can better help their patients. Here the author seems to impart a downright sinister motive to hundreds of thousands or millions or people (those who constitute Western medicine). I'm not sure it's really that bad. By far the most fundamental and deadly threat to Chinese medicine comes from the political and hence didactic and methodological stance taken toward what is still called Chinese medicine (zhongyi) in China proper. This attitude originally was conditioned by the, at first sight, so impressive feats of Western medicine and Western doctors in China late in the 19th and in the early years of the 20th century. It was abetted by the professional ignorance of decision-making politicians who did not have the least idea, not an inkling of what produced these effects and these impressions, and in what consisted the methodological and practical difference between Western and Chinese medicine. And it is today implemented by a new breed and generation of teachers and physicians who call themselves zhongyi ("physicians of Chinese medicine") but who, in fact, never in their lives and their practice have ever gotten in touch with what Chinese medicine had achieved and can achieve today and in the future. And, just as little as their predecessors, have they ever been given the least cue to reflect the reasons for the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of any kind of medical therapy. Here I understand him clearly, and all I can say is from my own meetings with numerous doctors of Chinese medicine in China he is simply wrong. It also makes me wonder how he himself came to be in possession of a knowledge base that is adequate not only of knowing "what Chinese medicine had achieved and can achieve today and in the future" but of knowing who has and hasn't reached this same plateau of what is, given the ability to know the future, nothing short of divine intelligence. As you can see, the article wasn't exactly striking a responsive chord with me up until this point, but here he seems to launch into a polemic that I can only presume is motivated by a rationale which remains entirely outside of this paper itself. Why on earth would anyone make such presumptuous statements? So what we see in China today is ever larger, ever more impressive hospitals and "big schools"3 teaching what, by name, is supposed to be Chinese medicine, yet which, in fact, is an eclectic, that is indiscriminate and constantly more ineffective mixture of Chinese and Western empirical medicine - with an external smattering of Western terminology to suggest some kind of trendy scientific aspirations. And those huge institutions are totally at the mercy of and dependent upon the input and existence of Western medicine. I need to make it clear here that I am not an expert on Chinese medical education in China today. I don't know to what extent the forgoing is accurate. But I don't trust this source, based upon the earlier inconsistencies. At the very least he is once again throwing the baby out with the bathwater by not noticing that the only reason there are any institutions of Chinese medicine is that these bungling idiots (if we accept his description of them) over there in China built them and brought the subject back to life. Not only are all "seriously ill patients" referred to Western style hospitals and physicians; the Chinese medicine establishment is simply maintained as a sham structure to make the Chinese, rightly proud of their culture and its priceless contribution to human civilisation and knowledge, believe that such traditions are still maintained and carried on. Here, again, he is wrong. If you are reading this sir, you are wrong. I have been involved in the treatment of many seriously ill patients at the hospital attached to the Chengdu University of TCM. In fact doctors from the large Western medical hospital across the street routinely refer patients with whom they have no or poor results to the TCM wards for care. The truth of the matter is that doctors in both facilities are well aware of the relative strengths and weakness of both approaches to medical care and rather freely and willingly cross refer, according to the needs and to a great extent the wishes of patients. The whole idea that the Chinese practice Chinese medicine as a scam is not merely insulting to Chinese medical personnel, it is insulting to the intelligence of readers who are supposed by the author to believe such nonsense. The clinic at the hospital at CDUTCM sees over 3,000 outpatients a day. They have a 750 bed inpatient facility that is always full. Full of patients being treated with herbs, acupuncture and moxibustion. Treated and helped for the most part. Below this thin layer of non-committal modern Western scientific labels we find growing, even stark ignorance about the most elementary facts of Chinese diagnosis and treatment. "Feeling the pulse", if it is still undertaken for ritual purposes, is not based upon any kind of stringent and consistent instructions. If I go to a purportedly exemplary modern hosptial of Chinese medicine today, I shall encounter apprentices who cannot even find the site of a pulse, let alone arrive at any kind of rational assessment with any degreee of precision. At this point I have begun to wonder whether or not the author's experiences in Chinese facilities has not been influenced to some degree or other by his own attitudes and expectations. And, if we examine the most recent textbooks or glance at professional publications, we shall look in vain for any consistent and convincing statement of an authentic Chinese diagnosis which, in its simplicity and transparency, immediately provides the stringent clues for treatment and prognosis. Instead we meet with a hodgepodge of Western terminology which anyone conversant with the methodology of (Western) medicine would perceive as a non-committal makeshift labels put on fuzzy or totally unknown disease mechanisms. And this obnubilation, this dismantling and stultification then is called "adjustment to international standards of medical science." It is certainly true that a bunch of bad books have been written on the subject, and not only in China, either. In the meantime, and what had not been apparent twenty or thirty years ago, even the teaching and practice of Chinese pharmacotherapy and the apothecary's trade is feeling the effects. And I am not referring to those alternative quacks and dumbsters who speak of and recommend "herbs" like Poria, Calomel or Eupolyphaga, but to the reputable professors at Chinese and Western scientific institutions who put out under their own names huge compendia of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, yet fail to name only the most important and most frequently used drugs of Chinese medicine; and who, of course, will consider themselves accomplished experts by restricting themselves to a chemical analysis of known material components - blatantly ignoring what the Chinese scientists had sometimes taken two thousand years to define precisely: the pharmacodynamic effects of an integrate native drug.So is it a surprise that the practice and application of Chinese medicine, in China as elsewhere in the world, has become an utterly irresponsible and ineffective procedure? These sweeping generalities are patently not accurate and once again primarily serve to force me to question the writer's motives and capacities. As I have explained at length and repeatedly,4 Chinese medicine in its true sense had dealt with and been a healing technique of present, that is, actual disorders, whose symptoms were directly and clearly perceived by the patient. In consequence, the treatment of these disorders required their positive perception and acknowledgement, and this included the acknowledgement of the patient's view of his disorder or illness. Western medicine, not because of ill will but because of a methodological shrinkage of the perceptive horizon and its resulting constraints, never accepts these statements of the patient at face value. They must be reinterpreted or completely set aside, ignored in order to arrive at the proper kind of diagnosis. So, the practitioner of Western medicine always feels and and is accepted as the expert, and the patient as the naive and believing layman. In China any moderately educated and intelligent patient could and would reflect upon the recommendation a doctor whom he had "consulted" for treatment. Today, also in China, even those people who consider themselves more or less educated will, without second thoughts, submit to a doctor's expert opinion. And here again, I am utterly lost. What is the point? Today, Chinese medicine in China, and still more so in other parts of the world, in America or Europe, does not carry any social or legal responsibility. ??? Never in recent decades have I heard of a case in China or in the United States where a so-called Chinese doctor or a "doctor of oriental medicine" was taken to account for lack of theoretical or practical competence in the methods of Chinese medicine! The only incompetence entailing legal pursuit is if he fails to perceive that the case he has before himself is slipping away, getting out of control - and hence must be treated with "real medicine" that is, referred to a Western physician or hospital. So in truth, in China as well as elsewhere, what today bears the label of Chinese medicine is hiding behind the big back of Western medicine. I actually get the feeling like he has seen something that ought to be seriously considered, but his logic is so specious that it is virtually impossible to do so. Certainly there must be greater theoretical and practical competence trained into practitioners of Chinese medicine in all areas where it is taught and practiced. But I truly doubt if the approach demonstrated in this paper will have the slightest effect whatsoever in effecting such progress. - If such is not the ultimate debasement of Chinese medicine, what is it?I am not writing as a prophet but as a scientist, a methodologist. Odd, becuase I'd say there are two prominent things missing from this article, science and methodology. So, even though I am saddened to learn that cautions, predictions I had put forward twenty, even forty years ago, have been confirmed by actual reality, this sadness will not mislead me into proclaiming the actual demise of Chinese medicine or, even more absurd, predicting the inevitable collapse or extinction of Chinese civilisation or of the Chinese race. Well I guess 1.3 billion people can breathe a sigh of relief now. Still, I am convinced that one (not the only and perhapts not even the most important) factor for the incomparable resilience and power of biological regeneration of the Han-race and, in consequence, of the Chinese nation, was the extraordinary true and just perception of nature and hence of the natural requirements of the human constitution - as expressed through Chinese medicine, Chinese diet, Chinese cooking, Chinese landscaping, Chinese architecture, Chinese clothing . . . If the essence of these traditions is abandoned, this will not spell the extinction of the Chinese population but, at worst, a demographic drop of a few percent per decade - an adjustment welcome to all who view human beings as Laozi had done, as chugou (straw puppets) or, by a modern term, as stochastic units. It is also true that such change spells a tremendous amount of individual suffering to an untold number of human individuals completely beyond the ken of stochastic perception. I guess in a few decades we can see if he was right. Early in the seventies, when I spent some time in Taibei, there existed only a single Western style bakery in that city of almost two million; and in provincial cities of Taiwan, nobody could even imagine how such a shop might have customers. When I came to visit a close friend in a small provincial town of Taiwan in 1991, it was at first sight totally impossible to obtain anything but an American style or European style breakfast. Not even the receptionist at the hotel could suggest where I might find a Chinese style breakfast that I was used to. In the end, I got help from a cleaning woman who happened to eavesdrop on my enquiries. She directed me to a spot where indeed traditional Chinese snacks were available 24 hours around the clock. So I went there and had a breakfast - in the company of garbage collectors and prostitutes. Is the point here that the only Taiwanese who still eat Chinese food the garbage collectors and the prostitutes? I've not been to Taiwan but I know several Taiwanese people who still eat Chinese food. They are not garbage collectors or prostitutes. Once again, I am left with the impression that the author has had some truly strange experiences. And the situation is not different on the continent. At Hangzhou, the dream destination of Chinese tourists, the drinks most in demand in restaurants, teahouses, traditional gazebos and snack stations are not any one of the variety of famous local teas but, instead, Western style beer, coke and instant coffee with cream. It must be the coke. Compared to other parts of the world, China as a region and a political entity, had been privileged in history despite the setbacks during the 19th and 20th centuries, by enjoying peace, stability, health and wealth for longer periods of time and for a greater number of individuals than had been the case elsewhere on this globe; Another truly bizarre reading of history. The "setbacks" of the 19th and 20th centuries can be measured in various ways. Something like 100 million Chinese have died violent deaths at the hands of despots foreign and native alike over the past hundred years or so. And prior to the communist movement in China there have been precisous few political agendas or initiatives there that even noticed the existence of the peasant class, long the bulk of the Chinese population. Chinese history is marked by cyclical periods of war, famine, disease, more or less like the history of other parts of the world. There have indeed been periods of relative peace, stablity and economic well being, but Chinese history is as paradoxical as any on such scores. Under the communist regime, the country has experienced what is probably the largest rise in standard of living for the largest number of human beings ever. It has also seen one of if not the closest approach to utter social chaos that any modern civilization has come in the Cultural Revolution. and now, at the end of the 20th century, most Chinese are again experiencing conditions of material abundance significantly above that in most other countries including those of the industrialised West.5 This statement is perhaps the most bizarre yet. In China today there are 900,000,000 peasants. Some 100,000,000 or so have moved from the countryside into the urban areas over the past decade or so, constituting one of the greatest movements of humanity ever recorded. This population alone, nearly three times the number of people that live in Wester Europe, are largely poor, significant numbers so poor that they lack not only proper medical care but food, shelter and clothing. The fact that the author cites as the source authority of this utterly ludicrous remark his own statement from 1990 more or less sums up the whole problem with this paper. It is based upon a set of assumptions which if taken as true support whatever it is that the author is saying. The one small problem that these assumptions have in common is that they have rather little to do with established facts. So perhaps for a time it can do without Chinese medicine, the kind of health care that had contributed to making it what it is today. But perhaps also, other nations in greater distress and hence more keenly aware of their unsatisfied needs, will take up the message and continue a methodology which China has abandoned. When I read this paper it does not make me either feel informed or worried about the state of Chinese medicine in China. It makes me worried about the status of authority on the subject in the Western world. On balance I am left with the impression that if the author could only succeed at convincing readers that the Chinese have ruined their own medical traditions, he might hope to advance his status as the savior thereof. I don't think so. Ken Rose Notes:1 Josepf Needham, Science and Civilisation in China - History of Scientific Thought and throughout his magnum opus; Manfred Porkert, Life Science - a Paradigmatic Outline and the articles reprinted after this Introductory Essay.2 I refer to the methodology of natural science intrinsically foreign to the solution of medical problems 3 Daxue - the Western translation of daxue by 'university' is in this case erroneous and perfectly misleading: those Chinese daxue essentially concentrate on courses and programs related to medical disciplines. There is no attempt and no evidence of a complete complement of all the sciences and the arts - as the Western term of universitas emphatically implies!4 At great length in Chinese Medical Diagnostics - the Comprehensive Textbook, pp. 24ff.5 Already at the beginning of the 90ties, I had stated that in China more food is thrown away than would be needed to feed the entire Indian subcontinent. 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