Oriental Medicine is new to many, but its ability to provide a superior first line of defense against most illness indicates the need for its better understanding by our patients and our potential patients. Careful examination shows that Oriental Medicine has far closer ties to Western Medicine than most realize. Oriental medicine began 5,000 years ago with the insights of sages, expanded upon during thousands of years of observation and study. Those insights and observations led to concepts and therapeutic procedures that paralleled developments in Greek medicine, the foundation of Western medicine.
Oriental and Greek medicines developed similar concepts of the fundamental influences on an individual's health - four humors in Greek medicine, five elements in Oriental medicine - and both recognized that harmony and balance among these elements were the key to a healthy life.
Hippocrates, father of Western medicine and the ultimate Greek physician, has been described as the founder of holistic medicine, for his medicine was a medicine of mind, body and spirit. In China, physicians similarly understood the relationship among emotions, spiritual energy, and the health of the body. Both systems recognized the impact of diet and the environment on health.
Oriental and Greek medicine developed similar diagnostic procedures. Newcomers to Oriental medicine are amazed at the diagnostic information Oriental physicians obtain by palpating a patient's pulses. Few are aware that Greek physicians were using and describing the same pulses and their use in diagnosis two thousand years ago.
Western medicine turned away from Hippocrates in the second century AD, primarily due to the influence of the Roman physician, Galen, who sought to identify diseases and their treatment rather than focussing on the patient in his or her entirety. That separation widened when 17th Century mathematician-philosopher René Descartes declared body to be separate from mind and spirit. From that time on, Western medical science has studied the body as a machine. Medical research has greatly expanded our knowledge of biological mechanisms, and a wealth of medical technology has been developed. The result is a Western scientific medicine that is laboratory based and has a disease orientation. It excels in technology, diagnosis and the management of often life-threatening symptoms of acute illness, but it is limited to alleviating the patient's symptoms in many chronic conditions.
Oriental medicine, in contrast, continued the tradition of observation and the perfection of methods to restore the patient's balance and harmony in all aspects of his or her physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Oriental medicine is patient-oriented rather than disease-oriented. Oriental medicine detects and treats the imbalances that lead to an illness rather than focussing on the management of a patient's physical symptoms. It is particularly effective in treating chronic illness, often caused by a combination of the environmental, emotional, and dietary influences that Oriental medicine has long studied. Oriental medicine helps restore balance within the patient's body and life with a variety of treatments: acupuncture, herbs, diet, energy-balancing exercises such as Qi Gong, and bodywork.
Oriental medicine, with a long record of success in treating chronic disease, is also highly effective in treating acute illness. Acupuncture - so useful in pain relief that it has been used for surgical procedures - is also a proven means of treating substance abuse and many other syndromes. With its ability to provide health care at a cost well below that of high-tech Western medicine, Oriental medicine is both a long-proven system of holistic medicine and a major community asset.
At Waimea's school of Oriental medicine, the Traditional Chinese Medical College of Hawaii, students are taught all aspects of Oriental medicine, from medical theory and diagnosis to the different modes of Oriental medical treatment. They are taught Western medical and clinical science so that they can communicate with their Western medical colleagues and recognize when a patient's symptoms require treatment by Western medical procedures. The College also provides low-cost health care to the community through its teaching clinic.
Oriental medicine complements Western medicine in many ways. By detecting internal imbalances, then restoring a patient's balance while symptoms are still minor, Oriental medicine can address cause and prevent the development of serious illness. The treatment of choice for many chronic illnesses, Oriental medicine is a low-cost way of treating acute illness as well.
Technically advanced Western medicine and holistic Oriental medicine are complementary medical systems, sharing similar heritages but each focussing on different aspects of medical care. There are emergency situations where there is no substitute for Western medical procedures. For most medical problems, however, Oriental medicine provides an effective, low-cost first line of defense against illness.
*Oriental Medicine - First Line Defense, written by Robert E. Smith, Ph.D., is an essay distributed to patients at the TCMCH Teaching Clinic who wish to learn more about the relationship between Oriental and Western medicine. The essay has generated broad interest as a useful guide to the complementary nature of these two major medical systems. It is included here to inform prospective students of the way these systems can work together to provide health care for patients.
