Trans. from Chinese by Sherwin Lu
Source
To Westerners, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is something mystical and yet miraculous. Once there was a Westerner who was suffering from constant coughing. He was given injections of antibiotics for quite some time but the coughing turned worse and worse instead of getting any better. There being no other alternatives, he went to a TCM doctor for a try. The doctor told him that the coughing was caused by kidney deficiency and antibiotics would not cure it. The Westerner did not believe the doctor, saying: “Coughing has nothing to do with kidney but is related to lung.” The doctor explained to him in terms of Yin-Yang and Five Elements Theory but could not convince him. Finally the doctor said: “Do not bother about theory. Why not take home a couple of doses of Chinese herbal medicine for a try?” The patient took the medicine home, but did not dare to try, for fear of being duped. But the coughing was getting so much worse that he could not sleep well at night. Seeing no other ways out, he decided to try the medicine even at the risk of his own life. Surprisingly, he had a good sleep that very night after he took the medicine, no longer awakened by coughing.
How miraculous! TCM is supposed to be unscientific -- How come it cures sickness? The Westerner was totally at a loss.
As a matter of fact, it is not that TCM is unscientific but that Western theory is unable to explain TCM. Westerners cannot help but wonder when they see TCM doctors making diagnoses by feeling the patient’s pulse.
This is just like what happened in ancient Europe: At that time people could not imagine that the earth was revolving around the sun. When one outstanding Westerner revealed the truth, most of his contemporaries did not believe him and took him as a deceiver. So he was burned to death as a heretic. Later, with the development of science, the truth finally became known to all that the earth is indeed revolving around the sun.
In the same way, most Westerners cannot understand and Western science at this stage of development cannot explain the miraculous effect of TCM. They think that TCM is phony, is a kind of heresy. But after the lapse of many years, with further development of Western science, their more advanced instruments may help people suddenly “see the light”: So it turns out that there ARE indeed meridians and Qi and acupoints in the human body, that kidney and lung ARE mutually related, one affecting the other, and that a human being is a holistic whole instead of something like a machine! Then they will announce, with thumbs up, “We are now positive that TCM IS scientific”. And those who live in China but believe in Western culture only will exclaim: “Thanks to Westerners for proving that TCM is NOT unscientific!” [Obviously they are blind to the hard fact that TCM has long since been proved as true knowledge about human body and sickness, repeatedly proved by thousands of years of practice by the Chinese people. – The New Legalist editor.] |
