Western and Eastern Medicine compared

by Al Stone L. Ac.

Ever seen that drawing of two silhouettes looking at each other? One moment you see two faces, the next moment, its a vase. Which is it? Obviously it is just a matter of your perception or the way your brain links together visual clues.

That's the difference between Western medicine, and Chinese or Oriental medicine. Diagnosing the same patient with a lump in her breast, the Western Doctor will see a cyst, lesion, fibroid or cancer whereas the Chinese Medical doctor will see a stagnation of Qi, Blood, or Phlegm. The Western Doctor will seek to prove the diagnosis with a biopsy of the hardened tissue. The practitioner of Chinese medicine will feel the unique quality of the pulse at the radial artery which may feel "wiry" or kind of hard, like a guitar string bouncing up and down beneath your fingers (as opposed to other pulses that can feel softer and more flowing), observe the color and shape of the tongue looking for purple in particular, with possibly a thick yellow coating. Also used for diagnostic purposes will be seemingly unrelated symptoms such as a sensation of constriction in the chest, abdominal bloating, heightened emotional sensitivity and a tendency to be easily angered, and frequent headaches at the top or the sides of the head. This will allow the doctor of Chinese medicine to come up with a diagnosis of "Qi, Blood or Phlegm stagnation." Same symptoms, same signs, same patient, but very different ways of organizing the information.

Within each discipline, there is an enormous amount of time tested information that has its own logic and usefulness. Both Western and Chinese systems have their place. Some believe that the greatest strength of Western Medicine is in it's trauma care and therapies for acute problems, while Chinese medicine excels in the areas of chronic problems and preventive medicine.

One concept that is central to Chinese medicine that the scientific world is still struggling to accept is an internal substance that the Chinese call "Qi" (pronounced "chee", sometimes spelled "Chi"). In the West we could describe this as bio-electric energy. You can't look at it under a microscope, you can't detect it with any scientific instruments, you can't isolate it from a substrate. This isn't to say that one cannot feel it, or see it, but these are intuitive human qualities that practitioners of Chinese medicine develop over years of practice. Many westerners can also perceive this Qi energy. Martial artists sometimes feel it as heat in the palms of their hands, or warm liquid moving through the body. It is the invisible substance in mountain air that clears the mind with just one deep breath. A young mother witnesses it in the form of light coming from her baby's eyes.

Acupuncture seeks to treat health on the level of Qi. There are pathways in the human body wherein this Qi flows. They are called meridians, or channels. Needles inserted along these meridians influence the Qi that flows to internal organs. It can affect both the structure and function of these organs. Needles can also work on specific areas of pain that may not be associated with internal problems, sport injuries, for example. A needle inserted near the area of a pulled tendon or overstrained muscle will increase the flow of Qi to that area which removes pain and quickens the healing process.

Another aspect of the difference between Oriental and Western medicine can be described as Oriental treats the Yang and Western treats the Yin.

Everything in the universe can be described in terms of Yin or Yang. This is one of the underlying philosophies of Oriental Medicine. The Chinese characters for Yin and Yang mean, literally, the sunny side of the hill and the shady side of the hill.

Yin is the feminine qualities in the universe,
Yang is the masculine qualities.

 As applied to Western medicine

As applied to Oriental medicine

 When applied to medicine in general, Western medicine acts upon the Yin of the body, the substance of the body, the actual cells and chemicals. Oriental medicine works more on the energy that animates those cells.

What Western medicine tends to diagnose and treat is the effect that the disease state has on the body itself. The Practitioner of Oriental medicine diagnoses and acts upon the energy that creates the disease state.

In ancient Greece, where Western civilization was born, the medicine of the day mimicked Oriental medicine in that they looked at the body with analogies to nature in much the same way that Oriental medicine still does. However, with the invention of the microscope and the discovery of the cell, Western medicine became very materialistic in its approach to the human body.

When I say materialistic, I'm not talking about an unhealthy attachment to money, but the sense that only the material of the body is real, nothing else. If you can't touch it, see it under a microscope or conceive of it in chemical equations then it doesn't really exist. It is a discipline that is based on the philosophy that only what exists in the physical realm is real. This is materialism. In Oriental terms, this is "Yin."

Oriental medicine acts upon the Yang of the body. Another way to describe this is to say that Oriental medicine acts upon the Qi energy. Qi is pronounced "Chee" and sometimes spelled "Chi." It is said that Yin and Yang are always connected. Acting upon the Yin will effect that Yang, and visa-versa. If we look at bodily fluids such as Blood as yin, which is a visible material, and Qi as the Yang, then the ancient statement is true that "Blood is the mother of Qi and Qi rules the Blood."

By acting upon the Qi, pathology involving the Blood is rectified. From the Oriental perspective, it is a deeper, more causal approach to medicine than Western medicine. It is this difference between acting upon the body's energy and acting upon the body's material that makes up the most significant difference between these two major medical disciplines.

Currently, in the West, there is a great deal of research being done on the effects of acupuncture, Chinese herbs and even disciplines such as Qi Gong. It is the opinion of the author that much of this research is presenting false results due to one simple fact, and that is that it only measures the body's reaction to the Oriental medicine from the materialistic "Yin" standpoint. To record this and call it knowledge is okay, but to limit the understanding of Oriental medicine to what is discovered in research is misguided.

I've seen many people research Oriental medicine to determine not how the herb or acupuncture treatment works from the Oriental perspective, but from how it "really" works, which is to say how it works from the Western perspective.

If we give an acupuncture treatment that is designed solely to activate the Qi in the body, many unusual aches and pains within the patient will be abated. When modern Western research attempts to determine what happened to take away the pain they'll look toward endorphin release in the nervous system, the body's natural pain killers. They may even find a higher prevalence of these pain killers in the blood stream which confirms that this is what acupuncture "really" does, but this is only the body's response to what "really" happened from the Oriental viewpoint. This is the law of Yang controlling Yin. What "really" happened is the Qi energy that wasn't moving well, was activated to move better. However, this is never understood, nor researched. And I believe that this is truly unfortunate.

It is because of this materialistic approach to medicine that so many alternative treatments are written off to the placebo effect, or the end of symptoms because the patient believes that they are supposed to end.

And it is this same approach that so many very real diseases avoid understanding by Western medicine. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Fibromyalgia are but a few common conditions that Western medicine considers "idiopathic" which means that the cause is unknown. In Chinese medicine, the cause is quite simply a stagnation of the flow of Qi energy due to a small variety of factors.

The fact is, the cause is not physical, however the symptoms are. Western medicine can see and measure certain changes in the body's chemistry and functional activities with these conditions, but cannot act upon these changes for lack of understanding of their cause. The symptoms are too divergent and unrelated from a materialistic standpoint. But when you factor in Qi energy and its properties, all these conditions make perfect sense.

When reading research on Chinese medicine, I invite the reader to keep in mind that reseach only measures the body's physical response to the changes that have been induced by the changes in the flow of Qi energy in the body. Research gives you half the story, and the other half is what Acupuncture.com is all about.

Finally, I applaud practitioners of Western medicine who are sincere enough about treating their patients that they are beginning to utilize acupuncture. I caution these practitioners, and patients who seek out their assistance, to understand that sticking needles into muscles that hurt to take away the pain is among the most superficial applications of Oriental medicine available. We're glad that MD's can help you in this manner, but we're also a little peeved that some MD's will poo-poo Oriental medicine for any internal or idiopathic problems.

Oriental medicine has a great deal to offer the Western discipline of internal medicine, perhaps more than the "pain control" applications that are finally being accepted in the Western medical community. Ten years ago, using acupuncture for muscular pain control too, was considered quite silly. In another ten years, I hope that we'll see a greater acceptance of Oriental medicine's true genius, and this is in the area of Internal medicine.

For patients who live in areas where acupuncturists are not allowed to practice, then only MD's will be available for acupuncture treatments. MD's with a scanty 200 hour education in acupuncture will likely do a wonderful job at taking away your muscular pain. It's really quite easy. But for anything else, it would be a really good idea to search out a practitioner who has been trained in traditional Oriental medical theory. Many MD's have been, so don't let the fact that they're also trained in Western medicine fool you. They may be able to provide you with the help necessary to act upon the Yang in your body as well as the Yin.

If there are no acupuncturists practicing in your area due to the laws of your state, then a good idea would be to seek out a school of Chinese martial arts such as Kung Fu, Tai Chi and others. They often know of practitioners of Oriental medicine who practice "underground." There are certain legal problems with this, but sometimes pain can motivate one to seek out help wherever it can be found. Perhaps someday acupuncture and Oriental medicine will be better accepted everywhere and practitioners will be able to practice legally.

Al Stone, L. Ac.