Nomenclature of Chinese Medicine

The Chinese medicine generally refers to the medicine based on the traditional medicine created by the Han Chinese working people, so it is also called Han medicine. It is a discipline that studies human physiology, pathology, and the diagnosis and prevention of diseases.

The Chinese medicine was born in the primitive society, the theory of Chinese medicine has been basically formed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, and has been summarized and developed in the following generations.

Chinese medicine carries the experience and theoretical knowledge of the ancient Chinese people in fighting against diseases, and it is a medical theory system that was gradually formed and developed through long-term medical practice under the guidance of ancient simple materialism and spontaneous dialectics.

Chinese medicine takes yin and yang and the five elements as its theoretical foundation, regards the human body as a unity of gas, form and god, and through the method of "looking, smelling, questioning and cutting" and the four diagnostic methods, it explores the cause of the disease, its nature and its location, analyzes the mechanism of the disease and the changes of the five viscera and six bowels, the meridians and joints, and the qi, blood and fluids in the human body, and determines whether the evil and the positive are eliminated or eliminated, and then comes up with the name of the disease. The disease is then summarized into a pattern, and the principle of diagnosis and treatment is used to formulate the treatment methods of "sweating, vomiting, lowering, and warming, clearing, tonifying, and eliminating", and to use a variety of therapeutic means such as traditional Chinese medicines, acupuncture, massage, cupping, qigong, and dietary therapy, so as to make the human body achieve the reconciliation of yin and yang, and recover.

On October 1, 2018, for the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) included Chinese medicine in its compendium of globally influential medicine.