What are the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western medicine?

There is a great difference between China and Western Europe in the timing of the break in the basic stages of social formations. The transition from a slave society to a feudal society took place in China at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and in Europe at the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a gap of nearly a thousand years between the East and the West. Feudal society in China lasted for more than 2,300 years, while in Europe the "Middle Ages" lasted for more than 1,100 years. In the 300 years since 1640, a typical capitalist system was established in Western Europe, while China went through a 200-year period of feudal decline, a 100-year semi-colonial and semi-feudal period, and a 50-year socialist stage. socialist stage. With the development of history and times, the state of development of Chinese medicine and Western medicine formed their own development curve.

Chinese medicine, from its origins until 1640, tens of millions of years, continued to move forward, there were several peaks of development, such as the Qin-Han, Sui-Tang, the two Songs, Ming Dynasty, etc., and the speed and level of its development for a long time in the world is far ahead. 300 years after 1640, the speed of development slowly declined to fall into the historical trough after 1840, and the speed of development fell behind the Western medicine. After the founding of the country in 1949, it began to rebound upwards.

Western medicine from the origins of ancient Greece, Rome is the accelerated development of the peak, from 476 years of the Middle Ages, the development rate declined, fell into a 1,000-year-long historical trough, the development of the speed and level of far behind the Chinese medicine. From the medical revolution in 1543, from the valley of the gradual upward climb, after more than 400 years of development, not only exceeded the Chinese medicine, but also reached the heights of the world's medical mainstream medicine.

The development of Chinese medicine and Western medicine has seen two great contrasts after 476 years, i.e., the medieval "East is high and West is low" and the modern "West is high and East is low". The difference between Chinese and Western medicine in front of us is that Western medicine is at the peak of modern development after the modern revolution, and Chinese medicine is in the period of upward rebound from the historical trough, which is the historical and contemporary characteristics of the existing differences between Chinese and Western medicine.

2. Economic and Political Differences

The development of medicine needs a social foundation, and the economic level of social development determines the strength of the development of medicine; social systems and policies control and regulate the development of medicine. The economic level of society and the political system, though, have a selective and constraining effect on the direction of the development of medicine. The speed and level of medical development in a certain country or a certain period of time depend fundamentally on the economic and political conditions of the country or the period. Behind the development of Chinese and Western medicine is the difference in the development of the two societies of Chinese and Western European societies, caused by the difference in the economic and political conditions of the development of Chinese and European societies.

The sustained development of Chinese medicine and the formation of the classical system is the product of the economic and political conditions provided by the sustained development and prosperity of China's feudal society for more than 2,000 years; the decline and wandering in modern times is the product of the decline of feudal society and the economic and political conditions unique to semi-colonial and semi-feudal societies. Western medicine in the Middle Ages in the decline, is Europe's "dark millennium" unique economic and political conditions of the product; 16th century since the revolution and the establishment of the modern system, is the development of capitalism provides a new economic and political conditions of the product.

The historical curve of the development of Chinese medicine is parallel to the historical curve of the development of Chinese society: the historical curve of the development of Western medicine is parallel to the historical curve of the development of Western society. The existing differences between Chinese and Western medicine are a reflection of the differences between Chinese and Western societies in the field of medicine.

3. Differences in science and technology

Medicine, in order to answer specific questions about human health and disease, needs to absorb and utilize appropriate scientific knowledge and technological means, which translates into the scientific and technological connotations of medicine, and the differences between Chinese and Western medicine are manifested as scientific and technological connotations of the differences in many aspects. Medicine's own way of thinking governs the direction of medical research, and it only selects and absorbs the science and technology that suits its needs. The development of science and technology in China and Western Europe had different achievements and levels in different historical periods, which provided different scientific and technological nutrition for medicine.

Both in China and in the West before 476, science and technology were not differentiated from natural philosophy. Chinese medicine and Western medicine respectively absorbed some of the knowledge of the natural philosophical form at that time, and some differences began to appear in the connotation of science and technology, but at that time it was only the germ of the differences.

The medieval period expanded the differences in scientific and technological connotations between Chinese and Western medicine. In ancient China, when science and technology developed to its heyday, the nature and level of scientific and technological connotation belonged to ancient science, and it was during this period that many theories and technical means of Chinese medicine were developed. In Europe, science and technology, together with medicine, became a religious theology, and its scientific and technological connotations were reduced to a minimum.

The 16th century and the centuries that followed decisively deepened the differences in scientific and technological connotations between Chinese and Western medicine. When the fruits of the European scientific and technological revolution spread to China, Chinese medicine was caught in a struggle for survival and lost the conditions for absorbing new scientific and technological achievements. Western medicine is different, the modern scientific and technological revolution for western medicine provides a new nutrition, the emergence of new advances, new results are almost all by transplanting the use of new scientific knowledge or technical means to complete, to the extent of leaving the scientific and technological support inch by inch.

The existing differences in the connotation of science and technology between Chinese and Western medicine are the result of two different courses of absorption of science and technology in the two kinds of medicine.

4. Differences in Ideology and Culture

In China's thousands of years of history, what has dominated for a long time is the idea of plain materialism and dialectics of nature, whose core ideas are the theory of yuan qi, yin and yang, and the five elements, focusing on wholeness, differentiation, interactions, and inherent contradictions, and the formation of the viewpoint of organism and the thinking of plain systematics. It has had a far-reaching influence on Chinese medicine, which has absorbed these ideas and implemented them into medical research, forming the basic viewpoint of Chinese medicine and the plain systematic way of thinking.

In the history of the West, in the ancient Greek and Roman period, the dominant mechanical materialism is the atomism and elementalism, the medieval period of religious theology overwhelmed everything, and since the modern era has formed a new type of mechanical materialism that inherits the ancient tradition of mechanical materialism. A direct influence on the existing system of Western medicine has been mainly Western philosophical thought since modern times. Focusing on particles, entities, combinations, decomposability, and external effects, Western medicine absorbed these ideas and implemented them into medical research, forming the basic viewpoints of Western medicine and reductionist way of thinking.

The two cultures of the East and the West have nurtured two kinds of medical academic thinking and ways of thinking, which is the ideological foundation and cultural roots of the academic differences between Chinese and Western medicine, and the differences between organic and mechanistic, and the differences between systematic and reductionist in the existing differences between the Chinese and Western medicine are clearly manifested.