Eastern versus Western Medicine
| Key Difference Awareness and use of bio-energy or Qi (chi, prana, life force) in the East, unawareness of it in the West. From this flow all the remaining differences: definitions of health, illness, and symptoms, the model of medicine, methods of diagnosis, role of physician and patient and the patient's psyche, prevention and responsibility for health, strengths and limitations. |
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| Eastern Medicine | Western Medicine |
| Key Beliefs | |
| Qi is life. Qi is heart of medicine. Life and Medicine are one. | Humans can control nature. Foreign invader causes illness. Control of symptoms » cure of disease. |
| Health | |
| A state of well being in which the body is vital, balanced & adaptive to its environment. | Absence of disease, pain, defect, or symptoms of illness (no theory of health). |
| Illness, Sickness, Disease | |
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| Symptoms | |
| Manifestation of the body's attempt to heal itself, therefore, messages, signals of unattended, underlying issues; or signs that something needs balancing. | Manifestation of the disease, therefore, they are disagreeable phenomena to be eliminated or suppressed. |
| Patterns Of Symptoms | |
| Symptoms are considered only in terms of their pattern. | Not addressed. |
| Causes Of Illness | |
| Any action/force which interferes with the balance and movement of bio-energy: one's constitution, psyche, lifestyle, trauma, environmental stress (nature or human). | A foreign invader, an extraneous force or pathogen: distinct entities with unique causes originating outside the body for every clinical disorder. |
| Multiple Causes | |
| Illness is the end result of multiple insults to the body (Pizzorno, p. 24). | Singular causes for each disorder/or disease. |
| Progression Of Illness | |
| Four stages of illness from 1) energy imbalances causing 2) functional changes that can initiate 3) a progression of chronic illness preceding 4) pathological changes in tissue. | A progression of a particular disease is noted, but only disorders of form and structure (morphology) are recognized, not progression of functionality into structure. |
| Personal Responsibility | |
| Key energetic changes are functions of one's psyche and lifestyle so preventing serious illness is primarily self care. | Patient's stories are mistrusted and personal conditions considered irrelevant. |
| Prevention | |
| The major thrust of medicine, so Chinese doctors were only paid if people stayed well. | Not the primary concern, actively discouraged by original insurance plans. |
| Model Of Medicine | |
| Man as ecosystem, a garden; harmony. | Man as machine; conflict. |
| The Physician | |
| As gardener, assistant: to cultivate life, to help patient get/stay well. | As mechanic: to fix what is broken. |
| Diagnosis: Understanding Illness | |
| Perceiving the relationships between all the patients signs and symptoms. | Uncovering a disease entity separate from the patient's being. |
| Treatment | |
| Preventing illness by balancing disharmonious energy and counseling lifestyle management. | Curing named disease and suppressing symptoms through drugs or surgery. |
| Science | |
| Of observation and experimentation, the original science, of anciently understood Einsteinian physics and quantum field mechanics where E=MC2. | Of reduction and induction, analytic and controlled science, of a mechanical Newtonian physics, long ago proved wrong at the cosmic & sub-molecular levels. |
| Measure For Diagnosis | |
| Human senses: pulse, tongue, eyes, coloring. | Laboratory equipment. |
| Bio-Energy | |
| Must be balanced (rhythmically), free-flowing/circulating, and continually replenished/of sufficient quantity. | Not considered. |
| Mind-Body | |
| Mind and body are one, inextricably interconnected. All medicine is psychosomatics. | Mind and body are separate and not necessarily connected. |
| Iatrogenic Illness (physician caused) | |
| Virtually non-existent. | 4th leading cause of death, harms millions. |
| Key Limitation | |
| Dependent on harmony with nature, it was not developed to deal with the worst of Western life: overwhelming and unprecedented environmental pollution, iatrogenic (physician-caused) illness, and consequences of the Western philosophy of individualism and the controlling and defeating nature. | Unaware of energy-based physiology (Qi), it therefore cannot detect, classify, measure or alter its effects in its beginning stages of illness. From this flaw stem not only the remaining differences listed above, but the worst consequences of western medicine—regularly and inevitably, it harms people. |
| Key Strengths | |
| Prevention, handling functional/chronic illness and self-care: Because it recognizes the key role of lifestyle and the psyche in energetic changes that can progress toward illness. | Handling structural defects: trauma and life-threatening illnesses. |
| Summary | |
| Quotes here are from these excellent overviews of Eastern and Western medicine: Hammer, pp 3-19, 35-45, 51-61, 383-402 Beinfield & Korngold, pp 3-47, 380-386 Elias & Ketcham, pp xi - xxvi Kaptchuk, pp 1-33 |
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