Today Teacher Zhang Daqing talked about the modernization process of Chinese medicine; yesterday’s class on “What Is Science?” happened to also be taught by Teacher Zhang, on the transformation of medical paradigms past and present; and tonight’s discussion class was about the modernizing problem of Chinese medicine. Taken together, let me talk a bit about my thoughts.
What Teacher Zhang referred to as the modernization process of Chinese medicine was not the modernization of Chinese medicine itself, but rather the process by which Western modern medicine was introduced. The concept of “modernizing Chinese medicine” is different from “Westernizing” or “scientizing” it. Modernization first of all means a kind of boundary-drawing: cutting oneself off from tradition and embarking on a new developmental model.
The modernization of Chinese medicine is, first and foremost, a compelled reality. Under the impact of modern science and Western culture, Chinese medicine has in fact long since been unable to maintain its old developmental model and social role; it must adopt a new position and seek a new direction of development. The question is: how should Chinese medicine be positioned, and how should it develop?
I feel that, apart from being despised by many people, Chinese medicine has also been excessively elevated in other respects. In theory, it is considered superior to the reductionism and mechanism of Western medicine; in practice, it is considered capable of dealing with difficult and complicated illnesses that Western medicine cannot easily diagnose and treat. Perhaps these views are not entirely wrong, but if one wants to develop Chinese medicine, the first thing is not to go head-to-head with Western medicine in curing disease. Even if one says that an individual old doctor of Chinese medicine may, with a miraculous touch, bring the dying back to life and outperform the most advanced modern hospital, in general Chinese medicine, both in theory and in practice, cannot beat Western medicine. If one insists on a frontal clash, I’m afraid the result can only be absorption.
Of course, Chinese medicine still may contribute to the development of modern medicine in terms of its underlying doctrines, but in fact it is more accurate to say that Eastern traditional thought may offer insights to the reductionist and mechanistic thought of modern Western culture, and it need not necessarily be expressed through Chinese medicine. The theoretical foundations of Chinese medicine itself were never entirely sound to begin with. As Teacher Zhang mentioned with an example yesterday, different old doctors of Chinese medicine may give completely different theoretical descriptions of the same patient (for example, whether the pulse is taut or slippery), yet arrive at the same diagnostic judgment. The craft of Chinese medicine relies more on the accumulation of experience than on theoretical support. We should not reject the theory of Chinese medicine in its entirety, but neither need we elevate it excessively. It would be better, perhaps, to be a bit more phenomenological about it: “bracket” its ontological judgments, and pay more attention to the activities of Chinese medicine at the level of practical operation.
But apart from the contributions it may make in the sense of Eastern wisdom, or from the sense of phenomenological experiential reflection, what Chinese medicine is most likely to contribute to modern medicine lies more in the medical paradigm or medical system. Unfortunately, the institutional positioning of Chinese medicine has now been extremely Westernized—the original master-apprentice, privately transmitted mode of inheritance in Chinese medicine has been folded into the Western-style university system; the itinerant doctor or clinic-based practice model of Chinese medicine has been incorporated into a public healthcare system centered on large hospitals; and these institutional arrangements in fact contain profound significance.
Is a doctor’s existence only for curing disease? As far as the doctor’s proper job is concerned, of course that is true; but as for its real significance, it is far more than that. Medicine also carries all kinds of cultural, psychological, social, and even political and religious meanings. These meanings are not embodied by the medical techniques themselves, but are more deeply implied within the “practice of medicine” as a mode.
December 10, 2010
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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