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? Is there a future for studying Chinese medicine? I think many people will ask this. Traditional Chinese medicine is actually the most humane medicine, bar none. But the inheritance of traditional Chinese medicine has always been a troublesome topic for us.

When I was lecturing in Guilin in late November last year, I received two phone calls in a row, both telling me that Teacher Yang Deming had lung cancer and it was in the late stage. Can you think of something to do? . My first reaction was to find a good Chinese doctor. After returning to Beijing, Teacher Yang was still receiving chemotherapy at Peking University Hospital. After more than a month of chemotherapy and more than 60,000 yuan spent, I was so thin that I was skinny and boneless. According to the doctor, chemotherapy has slowed the progression of the disease, but it will take another three to five months at most. Fortunately, Teacher Yang is still very clear-headed. I strongly suggested that Teacher Yang receive Chinese medicine treatment, and Teacher Yang readily agreed. However, Peking University Hospital refused to accept traditional Chinese medicine treatment, and Teacher Yang hesitated for a while.

Later, friends from the Chinese Medicine Strategic Research Group of the Ministry of Science and Technology recommended Dr. Wang Wenkui, and he finally decided to transfer out of Peking University Hospital and receive traditional Chinese medicine treatment alone. More than a month later, I received a call from Teacher Yang at home. He told me excitedly that the latest test results for pleural effusion found that the cancer cells in the pleural fluid had disappeared. However, during the test at Peking University Hospital, the pleural fluid had disappeared. The density of cancer cells is very high. Now, I can eat better, sleep better, and my mental state is much better. The good news spread immediately among friends. One friend said that it seemed that accepting TCM treatment was a strategic turning point.

Why do I have a special liking for Chinese medicine? The reason was that my mother died of stomach cancer 5 years ago. Her gastric cancer was discovered very late. She had multiple gastroscopy procedures and thought it was just general gastritis. The last time she went to Beijing from Shaoxing for a gastroscopy, cancer cells were discovered. A doctor at the Beijing Cancer Hospital thought it could be removed surgically, but when he opened it he found that it had spread widely, so he had to close it and wait for death. During this period, I witnessed my mother's agony and fell into deep thought. Why does Western medicine have to find cancer cells to diagnose a condition? In an era without gastroscopy, how did Western medicine diagnose cancer? If it cannot be diagnosed, how can it be treated? What should people in ancient and modern Western countries do if they get sick?

In this way, I gradually discovered that the progress of Western medicine in the 20th century was first of all in diagnostic methods. However, strictly speaking, the progress of this diagnostic method is the progress of optical, mechanical and electrical technology, not the progress of medicine. For example, an enteroscope is something similar to a cold capsule. It is actually a miniature camera with its own light source. It can take pictures of the inside of the small intestine and transmit it to a receiver outside the body through radio waves. The received signals are input into the computer for processing.

Is this an advancement in medicine? Or is it the progress of optical, mechanical and electrical technologies? The most advanced diagnostic equipment in large hospitals, such as CT, color B-ultrasound, MRI, etc., are all advances in optical, mechanical, and electrical technologies. Of course, optomechanical technology is not only used in diagnosis, but also in treatment.

I have a computer friend who invented an electrochemical cancer treatment device. I was surprised at the time. How could a person who didn't understand medicine at all invent a device to treat cancer? Now I understand that people who treat cancer do not need to understand the cause of cancer, that is, they do not need to understand medicine, as long as they can find some technical means to kill cancer cells. I believe that those who invented X-ray, CT, colonoscopy, and gastroscopy did not understand the complexity of the human body. They only regarded the human body as a machine composed of countless parts. Illuminating the human body with X-rays is like how customs uses ultrasound to detect smuggled goods in containers.

The second most impressive achievement of Western medicine is surgery. Surgery in the 20th century has made a clearer study of the fine structures of the human body's bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and various organs. However, the concept of the human body is still the concept of cadaver anatomy in the 19th century, that is, the human body is regarded as It is a static, complex machine with a complete lack of understanding of the various complex interrelationships within the human body.

For example, some people develop gastric ulcers and even gastric cancer due to long-term depression. However, no matter when the human body is opened, can surgical technology discover this connection? Surgeons can only see the state of the human body at a certain moment. Strictly speaking, they cannot even see a certain moment. Since the human body is opened, various states inside the human body have undergone important changes.

Metaphorically speaking, the human body is a wonderful, constantly moving river that a surgeon cannot even step into once. If you have to step in, the river will definitely change.

Therefore, advances in surgical technology can actually only solve transient and local diseases such as fractures. Some people may think that surgery is also quite effective for those organic lesions that have accumulated over a long period of time, such as heart bypass and kidney transplantation.

However, if we can understand the occurrence and development mechanism of organic lesions and interrupt or even reverse this process, why do we need surgery? You should know that surgery cannot eliminate the cause of organic lesions. If this part of the stomach is removed, there may be problems with the next part of the stomach. This kidney was replaced, but the other kidney broke again. Is surgical technology so misused a blessing for patients or a curse for them? Just like Teacher Yang's lung cancer, if there are drugs that can transform cancer cells into normal cells, why do we need surgery, why do we need chemotherapy and radiotherapy? Is it medicine that can only rely on surgery, or is traditional Chinese medicine, which can diagnose the cause and pathogenesis and mobilize the body's own immune function, considered medicine?

The third most impressive achievement of Western medicine is antibiotics. Now through colonoscopy, gastroscopy, CT, and MRI, the diagnosis results have come out. Inflammation has been found in a certain part of the body, such as the colon. Why does inflammation occur? According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, inflammation is just a result of some imbalance in the internal and external environment of the human body. As long as the balance is adjusted, that is, the balance of yin and yang, cold and heat, deficiency and excess, etc., the inflammation will naturally disappear.

The problem is local, but the cause may be overall. The problem manifests itself in the colon, but the cause may be in the spleen and stomach. This is a holistic view of the cause and effect of a condition. But according to the atomistic point of view of Western medicine, colon inflammation must be caused by a certain kind of bacteria. As long as a certain antibiotic is found that can specifically kill this kind of bacteria, the inflammation will disappear. It is based on this theory that Western medicine invented countless antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs in the 20th century. Currently, the sales of various antibiotics account for approximately 40%-50% of hospital drug revenue.

How do you know that a certain drug can kill a certain bacteria? Chemically synthesize drugs and conduct animal experiments on mice. Because humans and mice are both made of cells, if you can kill the bacteria on the mice, you can kill the bacteria on the human body. What if you can’t find a specific chemical? Patients will have to wait for the latest experimental results.

In fact, as far as I know, Western medicine has not yet found a specific antibiotic to treat colitis. Relying on some broad-spectrum antibiotics, I got better when I took the medicine, but got worse when I stopped taking the medicine. Furthermore, even if a specific antibiotic is found, it will still have side effects. The human body is an ecological club of millions of bacteria. When antibiotics kill certain pathogenic bacteria, they will also kill other bacteria that perform normal functions, destroy various subtle conversion and synthesis mechanisms inside the human body, and produce extensive side effects. .

A more troublesome problem is that there will be a "game" between bacteria and antibiotics. Many people know the story of the bollworm and pesticides. Some bollworms were killed, but other insecticide-resistant bollworms survived and continued to reproduce, necessitating the development of new insecticides. It is this mechanism that forced China's cotton-producing areas to move from the North China Plain to the Xinjiang region, because the cotton bollworms in Shandong are resistant to antibiotics, while the cotton bollworms in Xinjiang are not yet resistant. Similarly, some disease-causing bacteria are killed by antibiotics, and other resistant bacteria emerge, requiring the development of new antibiotics.

From this, I believe that the third greatest achievement, the development of a wide variety of antibiotics, is actually an advancement in chemistry, not medicine. The progress of chemistry is also reflected in laboratory technology. Through laboratory analysis of various human body fluids such as urine, blood, saliva, etc., the normal and abnormal values ????of the human body can be calculated.

In summary, the achievements of Western medicine in the 20th century were mainly achieved by technical means such as light, machinery, electricity, chemistry, and biology. In terms of medical concepts, they are still Staying on the atomistic and mechanical theories of the 19th century, we still know nothing about the inner integrity and variability of the human body, and are powerless to solve complex diseases.

On the contrary, in ancient times when there was a lack of technical means such as light, machinery, electricity, chemistry, and biology, Chinese medicine was able to explain the cause of disease due to its holistic and changing concepts in the philosophy of the human body. and pathogenesis, and develop corresponding treatments and drugs to treat complex diseases. In fact, my own colitis was cured by Chinese medicine. When exactly is it good? What medicine can cure it? I don't know. All I know is that after taking traditional Chinese medicine for a period of time, and then doing a colonoscopy, the inflammation can no longer be found.

After listening to my views on Chinese and Western medicine, a friend told me a story that happened to his wife. Ten years ago, his wife also suffered from cancer, and Western medicine told her to eat whatever she wanted. This friend was so ill that he sought medical treatment and found Dr. Shi Hanzhang of Dongzhimen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The patient has lost confidence and dare not go to the hospital. Based on the oral description of the condition, Dr. Shi wrote a prescription. After more than a month, the condition improved significantly. Now, his wife is still alive and well. During the Spring Festival last year, our two families had dinner together.

Once I realized the differences between Chinese and Western medicine in the philosophy of the human body, I became very interested in Chinese medicine.

I will regret it all my life! When my mother was ill, I didn't know how to compare the pros and cons of Chinese and Western medicine. I was still superstitious about Western medicine like ordinary people. If Western medicine declares a person's death sentence, it is science that declares a person's death sentence. Now I know that when Western medicine declares death, it is often Western medicine announcing its own incompetence and the error of its own human body philosophy.

I even think that the Western medical system, dominated by the wrong philosophy of the human body, is moving from mistakes to deeper mistakes. The specific manifestation of this is from cell biology (producing the concept of antibiotics) Moving towards genetic biology (searching for criminal genes and disease genes), moving from genetic biology to molecular biology. This is a continuation of the atomistic thinking of Western medicine. If the cause of the disease cannot be found at the cell level, go to the gene level to find it; if it cannot be found at the gene level, go to the protein level. In this way, it is very likely that the causal relationship of the disease will be fundamentally reversed.

Nowadays, medical students regard molecular biology as the pinnacle of future medicine, and even some students in medical schools of traditional Chinese medicine do the same. This is very worrying. The students trained in this way are likely to be closer to single-cell life and farther away from the human body. To a certain extent, I think Marx's theory also has a strong atomistic tendency. The so-called economic base determines the superstructure. In the human body, cells determine the whole, genes determine the whole, until molecules determine the whole, and atoms determine the whole. I feel that his theory cannot explain social movements very well. In New China, the atomistic way of thinking was spread through Marxism to a considerable extent.

What worries me even more is that such a naive atomistic and mechanistic philosophy of the human body actually dominates the medical community around the world. Western medicine declares itself as the only science and stifles other traditional medicines guided by the human body philosophy of holism and kinesiology, especially traditional Chinese medicine. If a patient dies under Western medicine treatment, the patient deserves to die; if a patient dies under TCM treatment, it is a medical malpractice. If the patient gets better under the treatment of Western medicine, this is the scientific and inevitable result of Western medicine; if the patient gets better under the treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, it is an accidental, unscientific, and unrepeatable miracle.

What is even more serious is that even if Chinese medicine can treat diseases reproducibly according to the statistical standards of Western medicine, Western medicine still arrogantly refuses to admit it. When the SARS epidemic broke out in Guangzhou in 2003, Guangzhou generally used integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine treatment, and the efficacy was very obvious. By mid-May 2003, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine had treated more than 50 patients, with no deaths, the average fever reduction time was 3 days, and no medical staff was infected. Among the 117 patients treated in the western medicine hospital where Academician Zhong Nanshan worked, 10 died; among them, 71 patients received interventional treatment with traditional Chinese medicine, and only one died. In other words, in the hospital led by Zhong Nanshan, who is known as the "number one hero in the fight against SARS", 9 of the 46 patients who received pure Western medicine treatment died. [1]

It is also worth mentioning that patients treated with traditional Chinese medicine have no sequelae, while patients treated with western medicine have a large number of pulmonary fibrosis and femoral head necrosis. The comparison of treatment costs is also extremely obvious. The Western medicine treatment at Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital mobilized ventilators from various countries in Asia. Each ventilator was burned and destroyed after use. This alone cost tens of thousands of yuan per person. Originally, Guangzhou’s traditional Chinese medicine was effective in treating SARS and should be promoted in Beijing. However, since SARS was later classified as an infectious disease, and according to regulations, patients could only be admitted to infectious diseases hospitals, Beijing's traditional Chinese medicine hospitals did not dare to admit patients. Because no leader of a traditional Chinese medicine hospital can guarantee that traditional Chinese medicine treatment will not kill anyone. Western medicine is allowed to treat any number of people to death, but Chinese medicine treating one person to death is considered a medical malpractice. According to Western medicine theory, the development of specific antibiotics is needed to treat SARS. However, when there are still no effective antibiotics, some leading authorities still only allow Western medicine to treat SARS. This is very strange.

. . . . . .

Yesterday, I recommended Dr. Wang Wenkui to a friend on the phone. This friend's father had pneumonia and was also receiving treatment at Peking University Hospital. Although the pneumonia has improved, there are problems with other organs. Towards the end of the call, I suddenly realized that superstition about Western medicine is indeed widespread in society. If parents, as children, receive TCM treatment, parents, relatives and friends will privately think that the children are unfilial. How sad! What a pity!

What is the reason why Chinese medicine has fallen to this point? Judging from the direct reason, it is because there are few good doctors and many quacks in traditional Chinese medicine. One dose of Chinese medicine contains dozens of flavors, like shooting sparrows with a shotgun. If the aim is not accurate, there will always be one that is right for the patient. Some patients also believe in traditional Chinese medicine, especially in small and medium-sized cities and towns and rural areas. Because traditional Chinese medicine has low medical costs and is less contaminated by the supremacy of Western medicine in big cities, they seek medical treatment from traditional Chinese medicine, but they often turn to quack doctors. Although the disease cannot be cured for a while, it cannot be cured.

Over time, the patient lost confidence in traditional Chinese medicine and turned to Western medicine for surgery to engage in "violent revolution."

However, why are there so many quacks? This is also related to the training of Western medicine in traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine needs to be taught by teachers. Because Chinese medicine faces a complex complex of contradictions, in which there are countless layers of contradictions at work, including primary (system level), secondary (organ level), secondary (tissue level), and Tertiary (cell level). In each level of contradiction, there are multiple levels from primary contradiction to secondary contradiction. Each pair of contradictions is relatively easy to resolve individually, and there are certain rules and regulations to follow.

But when different contradictions at different levels interact with each other, how can we treat them based on syndrome differentiation? A single principle is not enough. If multiple principles fight against each other, is there still a principle? Therefore, we need balance and coordination between principles, we need to find the main principles and secondary principles, and clarify the relationship between yang and yin. Each patient's condition is different, that is, the organization of the contradictory relationship is different. The same disease may have completely different causes; the same cause may have completely different manifestation locations and modes.

Therefore, training traditional Chinese medicine is like training a country’s prime minister. It requires both clinical practice and teacher-teacher teaching. This is why there is a saying that "if you are not a good appearance, you are a good doctor." Traditional Chinese medicine uses medicines that emphasize the compatibility of monarch, minister, and auxiliary agents. The monarch medicine attacks the main contradiction, the minister medicine strengthens the power of the monarch medicine, and the adjuvant medicine attacks the secondary contradictions and restrains the toxic and side effects of the monarch medicine, so that the medicine harmonizes the properties of the medicine. This is like rectifying a company with chaotic management. It not only needs to replace the main leaders, rectify morale, adjust market strategies, develop new products, and strengthen quality control, but it must also be done step by step to prevent disorder during the rectification period, resulting in the loss of funds, customers, and technology. Loss means to know how to appease people's hearts, pay attention to attacking a small group and protecting the majority.

Therefore, pure academic training of traditional Chinese medicine can only train department-level cadres who can solve a single type of problem, but cannot train prime ministers. This kind of department-level cadres are those traditional Chinese medicine doctors who stick to one or two prescriptions for their entire lives. This kind of traditional Chinese medicine doctor waits and waits. When he finds the right prescription for his condition, he becomes a "miraculous doctor". If he doesn't get it right, he becomes a quack doctor. From an external statistical perspective, the patient concluded that this was a quackery.

Really good medicine can adapt to changing circumstances and achieve extraordinary results. For example, in 1957, Japanese encephalitis was prevalent in Beijing. The famous doctor Pu Fuzhou cured 167 cases of encephalitis using 98 different prescriptions. However, the Ministry of Health led by Western medicine actually believes that just because each prescription solves the problems of less than 2 people, Mr. Pu’s medical skills have no statistical significance! Using the mechanistic approach of Western medicine to lead and evaluate the holism of Chinese medicine is just like asking children to evaluate adult behavior, which is ridiculous and lamentable.

The result of using the Western medicine model to transform traditional Chinese medicine is that it is estimated that there were about 5,000 good doctors in the country at the beginning of liberation, but now there are only about 500 left. What is even more puzzling is that according to the "Law on Practicing Physicians" promulgated by the Ministry of Health, those traditional Chinese medicine practitioners who have no academic qualifications and do not understand foreign languages, but have practiced medicine for a long time and have a good reputation will not be qualified to practice medicine. Doctor Wang Wenkui mentioned many times in this article, strictly speaking, does not have the medical qualifications recognized by the Ministry of Health. Isn’t it said that practice is the only criterion for testing truth? How come when it comes to medical issues, Western medicine is the embodiment of science and truth and has the right to deny other medicines?

In fact, Western medicine only recognizes atomic and mechanical science, which is the science of the Newtonian mechanics era. Unfortunately, although Newtonian mechanics ushered in a new era of mechanics, its influence was overextended. The truth one step forward is a fallacy. Since the birth of Newtonian mechanics, the Western ideological and medical circles have been obsessed with Newtonian mechanics. In the ideological world, Locke and Smith, including Hegel and Marx to a certain extent, were deeply influenced by Newtonian mechanics.

However, Newtonian mechanics is only suitable for a macroscopic physical world that is deterministic, reversible, mechanical, divisible and isolated (atomistic). The development of Western natural science actually quickly surpassed the world of Newtonian mechanics. The discoveries of thermodynamics, chemistry, biological evolution, quantum mechanics and relativity broke this deterministic and reversible world and brought us a highly complex, irreversible and contingency world. However, the Western medical community is completely isolated from the changes in natural science and remains stuck in the era of Newtonian mechanics.

Therefore, Qian Xuesen, a great scientist engaged in systems theory and cybernetics, once said (to the effect): Western medicine is in its infancy, and it will take another four to five hundred years to enter systems theory. It will take another four to five hundred years of development to reach the holism of Chinese medicine. [2]

However, although traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese culture may be far ahead of the West in their understanding of the human body and society, modern China was armed with Newtonian mechanics. The strong ships and cannons were defeated. Originally, it was entirely possible to learn from the skills of the barbarians to control the barbarians, "Chinese learning as the body and Western learning as the application". "Zhongzhi Zhi" failed again in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894.

National public opinion does not distinguish between "quack doctors" and "good doctors", abandoning "middle school" and setting off a wave of total Westernization. [3]

After the Revolution of 1911, the Beiyang Communist Party "decided to abandon traditional Chinese medicine and use traditional Chinese medicine" on the grounds that "it is difficult to use both Chinese and Western medicine". In 1929, the Nanjing Communist Party passed the "abolition of old medical records" on the grounds that "if the old medicine is not eliminated, the people's thinking will not change, the new medical industry will not be able to advance, and the health administration will not be carried out." Although these measures were strongly opposed by the public and had to be discontinued, they still dealt a huge blow to traditional Chinese medicine. After liberation, although the Communist Party of China advocated the integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine, because the Ministry of Health basically dominated Western medicine, the result of the integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine was that Western medicine was mainly combined with traditional Chinese medicine, making traditional Chinese medicine a second-class citizen. After the 1980s, the theory of total Westernization became rampant again, and Chinese medicine retreated from second-class citizens to third-class citizens, and even faced the risk of extinction.

In fact, the true integration of traditional Chinese and Western medicine can only be "TCM as the mainstay, Western medicine as the supplement." Traditional Chinese medicine can prevent subtle changes and eliminate most diseases in their budding or growing state. When the disease develops to a completely irreversible stage, the "violent revolution" of Western medicine can be used. As for which condition is completely irreversible, it depends on the treatment level of traditional Chinese medicine. For doctors like Wang Wenkui, late-stage lung cancer can still be reversed. For less skilled traditional Chinese medicine doctors (who are also good doctors, but with slightly lower medical skills), early and mid-stage lung cancer can be reversed. In this way, it is possible to form a traditional Chinese medicine network composed of a few outstanding doctors and a majority of ordinary doctors, covering urban and rural areas at a cost far lower than that of western medicine.

People with the same disease have sympathy for each other, and orangutans cherish each other. In the medical field, traditional Chinese medicine is not mainstream. In the field of economics, I am also outside the mainstream. The non-mainstream experience is similar. In the economics community, a PhD in economics with a background in mathematics, even though he knows nothing about economic history, even though he has no understanding of the complexity of the economy and society, he can play with statistical data to make models, and he can write articles and publish them in international academic journals. , can rely on the reputation of publishing papers in international journals to dictate economic policies, just like a doctor of medicine who studies molecular biology can do whatever he wants with a patient. The economy was ruined and patients were put to death, but they were the embodiment of science and could not take any responsibility. They blamed the patients for not being their typical patients.

Woohoo! It is better to go back and study Chinese medicine.

[3 ] For relevant discussion, please see my article: "Reunderstanding Chinese History", January 2005 issue of Tianya magazine.

The Book of Songs Love Words shijingqinghua ? The picture comes from the Internet. This article is selected from "Jinlan Traditional Chinese Medicine Society" (WeChat ID jinlanzhongyi), originally published in "China Social Guide" Issue 05, 2005. "The Book of Songs Love Words" (WeChat ID shijingqinghua) collected and compiled. Respect knowledge and labor, please indicate the source when reprinting.