Why is TCM not divided into specialties? Why is good Chinese medicine a general practice?

Preface

The division of Chinese medicine into Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture; into women, children, internal, external, skin, etc. with reference to the Western method is a living fragmentation and dismemberment of Chinese medicine. A truly good TCM doctor must grasp the human body as a whole, and identify the condition from the whole body, both inside and outside.

There is a joke that you may have heard before.

A patient had a toothache and went to the stomatology department to have a tooth extracted, because the doctor’s hand shook, the extracted tooth was not clamped firmly and fell into the throat. The doctor instructed the patient to hurry to the ENT department. The patient was in a bit of a hurry, and when he got to the laryngology department, the tooth had slipped down into his stomach. The patient ran to the gastroenterology department again, some gastroscopy, the fallen tooth is no longer in the stomach …… Finally, the patient stripped his pants in the anorectal department cocked his buttocks, the anorectal doctor wrenched a check, exclaimed: Oh my God, how you have a tooth in the anus? Please go to the stomatology department to extract the tooth!

This is, of course, just a joke. But more or less can reflect a little bit of the reality of medical subspecialty drawbacks. Many patients often don’t know what to register for when they go to the hospital. As for Chinese medicine, nowadays, it is divided into Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, etc. from the beginning of education. Among them, TCM clinical subdivision into pediatrics, gynecology, internal medicine, surgery, etc., and even more finely divided ……

Although the call for “Chinese medicine in the folk” has been growing in recent years, we have to admit that many folk Chinese medicine practitioners are just “one trick to treat the world”. For example, by relying on one or two secret recipes, they can claim to specialize in treating skin diseases, headaches and gynecological fibroids …… Is this the true way of thinking about Chinese medicine?

01. The drawbacks of TCM subspecialties

I sometimes get asked what my primary treatment is. I guess the other party is probably asking me which specialty I specialize in. I have always believed that subspecialties are a living fragmentation and dismemberment of TCM. The original medical, pharmaceutical, and acupuncture are unreasonably and forcibly separated. Is it appropriate for TCM clinics to be divided into internal, external, maternal, child, and skin departments as in Western medicine?

Is there a dermatology department?

Many of the root causes of sores and ulcers are internal. For example, thrush is sometimes caused by intestinal canker sores, that is, sores in the intestines. If you just put ointment on the surface of the skin, it won’t heal for the rest of your life. Mr. Hu Xiju has a medical case in which he used the herbal medicine, “Phytolacca septica”, to treat intestinal canker sores internally, and the thrush on the surface of the skin was cured naturally.

The psychiatric material?

For mental illness, Western medicine focuses on the brain anyway, and all use central nervous depressants such as Valium and Clozapine. This is not the case with traditional Chinese medicine. The so-called “mental illness” often has its roots outside the brain. For example, the evidence of “Daidang Tang (Pill)” is used to treat “psychosis” caused by blood stasis in the small abdomen

“The person who is frenzied, with heat in the lower jiao, the abdomen when whip full, urinating from the blood is cured.”

There are also “psychosis” even just because the stool is blocked, such as Yangming Da Cheng Qi Tang, the brain symptoms of frenzied delirium, we have to start from gastroenterology to pass the stool.

Is there an oncology department?

The treatment of cancer in TCM is not as simple as just using the so-called anti-cancer drugs such as half lotus and snake tongue herb. Of course, it shouldn’t be replicated to the point where there is no way to start talking about cancer. For a doctor who has learned through the Treatise on Typhoid and Miscellaneous Diseases, there is no essential difference in methodology between treating cancer and treating a cold. For example, we have treated rectal cancer with Da Chai Hu Tang more than once, and liver cirrhosis with Chai Hu agent and with Yin Chen Wu Ling San combined with Jian Zhong formula.

Set up a Chinese medicine cosmetology department?

Can spot removal, beauty, and weight loss be effective without a sophisticated study of internal medicine and miscellaneous diseases such as dampness and water stasis? It is effective but temporary. Is there a specialist in infertility? The whole body does not recover, the uterus is not warm, the blood stasis is not removed, the dripping is not solved, the fibroids are not eliminated, the liver is depressed and blocked, and the qi and blood are not restored, how to get pregnant …… I’m not going to give you any examples.

02. The origin of the division of Chinese medicine

The division of Chinese medicine is actually still a matter of decades. The famous doctors of the past generations, such as Zhang Zhongjing, the sage of medicine, and Sun Simiao, the king of medicine, are not specialists who only treat a certain type of disease. Zhongjing’s “Treatise on Typhoid and Miscellaneous Diseases” and Sun Simiao’s “Thousand Gold Formula” treat almost everything. Since ancient times, Chinese doctors are also usually medicine is not divided, their own prescriptions, their own preparation of drugs, famous doctors are usually proficient in pharmacology, typical of such as writing the Chinese medicine work “Ben Cao Compendium” Li Shizhen, also has a medical book “Qi Jing eight pulse examination” and “Frequency Lake pulse science” passed down. Wang Ang, a famous doctor in the Qing Dynasty, also wrote the classic medicine book “Ben Cao Bei Yao”. At the same time, in ancient times, acupuncture and moxibustion and prescriptions were often used in conjunction with each other when the doctors were treating each other.

Even in the Republic of China, Chinese medicine was not divided into specialties. Most of the Chinese medicine practitioners in the Republic of China practiced in the form of private clinics. The most familiar TCM practitioners, such as Hu Xiju, Zhu Weiju, Yun Tieqiao and Cao Yingfu, all had private clinics back then. Traditional Chinese medicine training is basically through master and apprentice.

So, why was the holistic nature of TCM broken down instead?

This is because after 1949, there was a serious shortage of medicine in China, and the government made great efforts to develop Chinese medicine, or more precisely, to develop a combination of Chinese and Western medicine. But the traditional way of training TCM doctors had too long a cycle and obviously could not solve the urgent problem. As a result, a number of Chinese medicine schools were established, and the disciplines were divided according to the Western medicine education model. In this way, Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, which were originally one, were separated, and the clinical aspects of Chinese medicine were subdivided into various disciplines. The current examination for practicing physicians is even more so in a legal sense, separating prescription, acupuncture, and Chinese medicine completely. Licensed acupuncturists are not authorized to prescribe, and licensed TCM practitioners are not allowed to use acupuncture. A licensed herbalist, cannot practice therapy. In this way, in everyone’s mind, TCM is strictly divided into specialties, just like Western medicine. Even when you go to a Chinese hospital, you consciously hang dermatology, surgery, internal medicine ……

03. various “symptoms”, often the same “root”

We all know that Chinese medicine emphasizes treating the root of the disease. However, when doctors are accustomed to the pattern of subspecialty, they often involuntarily subspecialty the disease as well. This undoubtedly creates a limited thinking. It is easy to turn into the “headache to cure the head, the foot to cure the foot” thinking of treating the symptoms. Very often, different diseases, different symptoms, in fact, only one cause.

For example, water-dampness in the body, going to the head can be dizzy, such as Ling Gui Zhu Gan evidence of “dizziness of the head, the body is Zhen Zhen shaking”, and also such as Zhen Wu Tang evidence of “Zhen Zhen want to seclude the ground”.

Water-dampness (water-drink) stagnation in the upper jiao may cause coughing, as in Xiao Qing Long Tang.

Dampness blocking the heart may lead to vomiting and rebellion and lack of desire to eat.

Water travels between the intestines, may be loose, may not be able to urinate.

water stagnates in the lower jiao, may have swollen feet, may cause urinary tract diseases as western medicine says, such as the evidence of Wu Ling San and Pig Ling Tang.

water-dampness entering the meridians and bones can lead to cold and painful joints, often referred to as rheumatism

water-dampness filling the muscles can lead to body heaviness.

water-dampness going between the skin will swell and may also grow eczema and other skin diseases.

Water dampness can also trigger insomnia ……

That is to say, the same root – water dampness, can trigger different symptoms, the same cause leads to different diseases, triggering a variety of symptoms, involving various disciplines.

Therefore, a really good TCM practitioner must grasp the human body as a whole and identify the condition from the whole body, both inside and outside. It is not possible to divide the body into different branches, nor can it be divided into branches. Otherwise, what is the difference with a blind man feeling an elephant? The one who can grasp the general order of the human body as a whole is naturally a general practitioner.