Guest guest Posted August 19, 2000 Report Share Posted August 19, 2000 Is there a system of iridology within Chinese/oriental medicine. I am sure someone in China over the milennia looked at this, but is there a system at present? Sean P. Doherty, M.Sc., M.S., L.Ac. Nashua Natural Medicine 76 Northeastern Blvd., Unit 36A Nashua, NH 03062 ph(603) 579-0956 fax(603) 579-0957 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 19, 2000 Report Share Posted August 19, 2000 , " Nashua Natural Medicine " < sean@n...> wrote: > Is there a system of iridology within Chinese/oriental medicine. I am sure > someone in China over the milennia looked at this, but is there a system at > present? there is chinese eye dx, but it hardly goes into the detail of Bernard Jensen style iridology. As always, the usefulness of any diagnostic system in TCM is how or whether one can key it to actual treament principles. Jensen's iridology is based on a modern anatomical understanding of the body, not a functional one, per se. So when irdology identifies a liver toxicity, for example, there is considered to be an actual physical lesion in the liver. this lesion may be subtle, but it is a wholly different concept than saying the liver qi is stagnant in TCM, for example. So seeing liver area spots in the iris may not tell anything about the gan in TCM, since the gan may include aspects of the nervous and hormonal systems also from a modern perspective. This question also raise the whole of issue of microsystem diagnsotics and therapeutics to me. I have always found things like ear acupuncture, hand acupuncture, foot reflexology and iridology to be somewhat contrived. As effective as all these therapies obviously are, I wonder how much basis this idea has in classical chinese medical literature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 19, 2000 Report Share Posted August 19, 2000 on 8/19/00 8:01 AM, Nashua Natural Medicine at sean wrote: > Is there a system of iridology within Chinese/oriental medicine. I am sure > someone in China over the milennia looked at this, but is there a system at > present? > There is the five-phase related system of parts of the eye. . . .you can read about this in Essential Subtleties On the Silver Sea/Yin wei jing hai, translated by Unchuld/Kovacs, from University of California Press. A great book. There is nothing I know of that covers the areas of the iris, as iridology does. What is interesting about iridology, and which begs investigation, is the arrangement of the iris in a holographic manner, where the most internal viscera are at the center, and the (contents of the) upper burner corresponds to the upper iris, middle burner to middle iris, and lower burner to lower iris. The correspondences are in line with Chinese medical theory, and it would be worth checking it out. . . although one would have to look at the Chinese conception of zang/fu and channels, not biomedical organ conceptions when doing so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 19, 2000 Report Share Posted August 19, 2000 on 8/19/00 12:19 PM, at wrote: > , " Nashua Natural Medicine " < > sean@n...> wrote: >> Is there a system of iridology within Chinese/oriental medicine. I > am sure >> someone in China over the milennia looked at this, but is there a > system at >> present? > > there is chinese eye dx, but it hardly goes into the detail of > Bernard > Jensen style iridology. As always, the usefulness of any diagnostic > system in TCM is how or whether one can key it to actual treament > principles. Jensen's iridology is based on a modern anatomical > understanding of the body, not a functional one, per se. So when > irdology identifies a liver toxicity, for example, there is > considered > to be an actual physical lesion in the liver. this lesion may be > subtle, but it is a wholly different concept than saying the liver qi > is stagnant in TCM, for example. So seeing liver area spots in the > iris may not tell anything about the gan in TCM, since the gan may > include aspects of the nervous and hormonal systems also from a > modern > perspective. > > This question also raise the whole of issue of microsystem > diagnsotics > and therapeutics to me. I have always found things like ear > acupuncture, hand acupuncture, foot reflexology and iridology to be > somewhat contrived. As effective as all these therapies obviously > are, > I wonder how much basis this idea has in classical chinese medical > literature. > > > > I agree with Todd's sentiments, and as I mentioned in a previous post, the different body maps of CM and biomedicine make it difficult to correlate modern iridology with Chinese eye maps. However, it may be possible to investigate the iridology phenomenon further, and apply it to Chinese medical practice in the future. Ear, hand, foot and nose acupuncture (also, dental 'meridians', Voll acupuncture points and 'meridians') are not based on classical Chinese medicine. They are based on neuroanatomy, bioelectrical phenomena, and embryology. Again, they may be excellant treatment methods, but they are not really from the classical Chinese medical tradition. I have no problem with Nogier ear acupuncture, which is a consistent system, but I do with Chinese ear acupuncture, which freely mixes neurological and anatomical concepts of biomedicine with Chinese functional system ideas, and therefore is quite confused. For example, endocrine point, shen men (or neurogate) point, liver point (which treats supposedly both the " Chinese " and " Western " liver), and triple burner point. I can't make any sense of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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