Chinese Medicine
Patient-Tailored Treatment
Beyond their different perspectives of health and disease, Chinese medicine and Western medicine espouse different philosophies of diagnosis and treatment. “Western physicians target germs, but Chinese physicians target forces that are out of balance within the body,” explains Efrem Korngold, a.M.D., L.AC. “Western physicians kill germs, but Chinese physicians reharmonize the currents of qi.”
Western and Chinese medicine share two diagnostic tools: the medical history and the physical exam. But Western physicians also utilize an array of high-tech diagnostic equipment. In contrast, Chinese physicians use only their senses-what they see, hear, smell, and feel.
Consider pulse examination, a mainstay of Chinese medical diagnosis. In Western medicine, pulse is the number of times that the heart beats per minute. In Chinese medicine, pulse is a window into the organ networks.
Chinese medicine physicians check the pulse by placing three fingers on a patient’s inner wrist. The forefinger feels the pulse closest to the thumb, which corresponds to the Heart and Lung. The middle finger gleans information about the Stomach, Spleen, Gallbladder, and Liver. The ring finger monitors the Kidney, Bladder, and Large and Small Intestines. Experienced Chinese physicians can distinguish up to 32 different pulse patterns.
What’s more, where Western medicine treats patients with the same diagnosis similarly, Chinese medicine treats patients individually. “Illnesses may be identical, but the persons suffering them are different,” noted eighteenth-century Chinese physician Hsu Tach’un. “Their emotions and stresses are not the same. If one treats all those who appear to suffer one identical illness with the same therapy, one misses the influences of each individual’s qi. Physicians must, therefore, take into account the differences among people and treat each individual’s constitution.”
Herbs: Healing Essentials
The healing prescriptions that Chinese physicians create for their patients rely heavily on herbal formulas. But these herbs aren’t categorized according to their medicinal benefits. Rather, they’re classified based on five distinct qualities: Color; Nature (warming, cooling, neutral); Taste (sour, bitter, sweet, bland, spicy, salty); Configuration (shape, texture, moisture); and Property (dispersing, consolidating, purging, tonifying).
Some herbs used in Chinese medicine are also common in traditional Western herbal medicine. Many others are uniquely Chinese and have no English names. These must be identified by their Chinese or Latin names.
While classic Chinese medicine favors individualized herbal formulas, modem Chinese physicians have developed combination formulas that they prescribe for some common ailments. Here are two examples.
Yin Chiao Chieh Tu Pien. This cold remedy (pronounced “yin chow chee dew peein”) contains licorice, which soothes a sore throat, and honeysuckle and forsythia, which act as anti-inflammatories.
Yunnan Bai Yao. This formula (pronounced “you-nan bye yow”) is often prescribed after an injury or surgery. “I’ve recommended it to several people who’ve undergone surgical procedures;’ Dr. Korngold says. “The surgeons were surprised at how little incisional bruising and swelling the patients experienced.”
