Traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine

Since modern medicine was introduced to China from the west, the comparison between the two medical systems has been going on. Opponents of traditional Chinese medicine used to call them "new doctors" and "old doctors"; Supporters of traditional Chinese medicine use such names as "western medicine" and "national medicine". Contemporary neutral terms include "modern medicine" and "traditional medicine". The medical system in the world can be roughly divided into:

"anthropomorphic medical system" (theology): it is believed that diseases are caused by supernatural (divine) forces, such as Satan, ghosts and gods. Witch doctors, child molesters, spells, etc. Belong to this category.

"Naturalistic medical system" (empirical medicine): It is believed that the occurrence of diseases is caused by changes in the natural environment or abnormal lifestyles of people, such as changes in climate, eating habits and people's mood. Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, homeopathy and so on all belong to this category.

Science in Medical System (experimental design): Medicine, which presents the results in a deductive and inductive way by setting assumptions and experimental design, or produced by scientific instruments, is the mainstream of modern medicine, such as western medicine.

The former two are classified as traditional medicine or alternative medicine, while the latter belongs to the mainstream of modern medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnoses diseases according to the results of listening, speaking and questioning, but there are also cases where only diseases are distinguished without distinguishing (such as emergencies or special prescriptions for diseases), or cases where only diseases are distinguished without distinguishing (such as unknown diseases, incurable diseases or physical conditioning). Different from the way western medicine pays attention to "disease" in diagnosis, Chinese medicine often emphasizes "dialectics"

Taking a cold as an example, western medicine will distinguish between viral infection and bacterial infection, and will distinguish between upper respiratory tract infection and pneumonia; But these diagnoses are not the most important for Chinese medicine. From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, it is necessary to distinguish whether this belongs to wind-cold or wind-heat; If it belongs to wind-cold, it can be divided into sun disease, Yangming disease or shaoyang disease; If it is wind-heat, it is necessary to distinguish at which stage the pathogenic factors are, such as defending qi and nourishing blood.

Some Chinese medicine practitioners believe that one of the values of Chinese medicine lies in prescriptions, which are the crystallization of doctors' experience. The development of traditional Chinese medicine itself is experimental medicine, especially the classic prescriptions and prescriptions that have been repeatedly used by countless doctors in clinical human experiments for hundreds or even thousands of years and proved to be effective. Facing the disease directly, mastering the main syndrome, choosing the prescription of the syndrome to add or subtract, and not sticking to the theory can treat the disease, which is the true face of the essence of TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment.

Modern Chinese medicine also adopts the combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine. Especially in Chinese mainland, modern medical detection methods are used to assist diagnosis, and Chinese medicine can treat patients with integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine.

Western medicine mainly determines the condition through medical instruments and chemical experiments, and then uses chemical preparations and advanced medical equipment to treat diseases by killing pathogens or inhibiting treatment. This is the so-called antagonistic therapy.

Usually, some patients will turn to Chinese medicine for help when they are suffering from persistent diseases, chronic diseases or diseases of unknown causes, or because of the limitations of the development of modern medicine, or the limited medical resources available to patients and there is no treatment. The vast majority of people turn to western medicine in the case of surgery and serious diseases with rapid deterioration.

Whether a disease can be cured and how likely it is to be cured, Western medicine has clear statistical data to follow than Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) judges the curative effect through the changes of pulse condition and symptoms after taking medicine. Some Chinese medicine practitioners think it is difficult to carry out comparative experiments of Chinese medicine, but modern scholars who study Chinese medicine have also established a variety of experimental animal models or entered clinical human experiments to conduct comparative experiments to verify the efficacy of prescriptions or Chinese medicine.

The treatment methods and drugs of western medicine should be confirmed by scientific comparative tests (such as using placebos). Most Chinese medical classics were written in ancient times, such as Huangdi Neijing in the Warring States Period, Treatise on Febrile Diseases in the Eastern Han Dynasty and Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty. They are recorded in classical Chinese or ancient spoken language and songs, which makes people difficult to understand and increases the difficulty of communication. In ancient China, the official kept collecting and revising all kinds of TCM classics, which became official medical books and had an examination system, while among the people, they were handed down in the form of mentoring or heirlooms. In modern times, universities or colleges of traditional Chinese medicine were established to systematically sort out, study and teach traditional Chinese medicine, and at the same time, some ways of mentoring and heirloom were reserved among the people.

Western medicine is carried out in accordance with the written knowledge system. If a certain treatment or drug is wrong or effective, this knowledge can spread quickly.

It is generally believed that experienced old Chinese medicine practitioners have better medical skills, and experience has an obvious decisive role in curative effect. Because the dialectical method emphasized by TCM is described by the words of Yin-Yang and Five Elements in China's philosophy, it is difficult to understand. In the classics of traditional Chinese medicine such as medical classics, materia medica, medical records, medical characters, etc., various prescriptions, the timing of use, processing methods, contraindications, side effects, symptoms after misuse and treatment methods are recorded in detail.