My Views on the Debate Between Chinese and Western Medicine

The debate between Chinese and Western medicine has a long history. As early as the Meiji Restoration in Japan, a controversy arose between kampo physicians (TCM) and Dutch-style physicians (Western medicine). With the arrival of Western civilization—especially the influence of anatomy brought by the Dutch—the mainstream status of kampo medicine was severely challenged.

The Meiji-era thinker Tsuda Mamichi said: "All learning may broadly be divided into two kinds. That which loquaciously discourses on empty theory—on nothingness and cessation, on the five phases and human nature, or on innate knowledge and innate ability—is empty learning. That which is grounded in concrete phenomena and devoted to real principles, such as the physics, chemistry, medicine, economics and philosophy of the modern West, is real learning. If this real learning spreads throughout the land and people understand its truths, that may be called true civilization."

Another Japanese scholar, Fukuzawa Yukichi, wrote in his Gakumon no Susume (An Encouragement of Learning): "We should regard learning remote from practical life as secondary, and devote ourselves to the practical learning that meets the everyday needs of human life." He then commented: "The revolution from empty learning to real learning was first of all an ideological revolution; it freed people from the bonds of feudal moral doctrine, established a new view of learning, and brought the realization that only scientific knowledge is true learning, and that only by relying on science can modernization be achieved."

During the Meiji Restoration, the standing of Japan's traditional medicines—kampo (TCM), Korean-style medicine, Buddhist medicine, and even Japan's own indigenous medicine regarded as its "national learning"—was all gravely challenged. Later, kampo physicians were even banned from practicing.

Yet it was precisely in this era that Japan produced a great kampo physician such as Asada Sohaku.

Prince Haruhito, later to become Emperor Taisho, was gravely ill and not long after birth, and all the physicians were helpless. Asada Sohaku used kampo medicine to save him.

Prince Haruhito was frail and fell critically ill again and again. Asada Sohaku spent two years resolving all the health problems of this future emperor.

Around the same time, the French envoy suffered from back pain and repeatedly failed to improve under Western treatment. Asada Sohaku combined acupuncture and TCM herbs and cured him in a week. The delighted envoy translated his own case and the prescription (TCM's Guizhi plus Fuling Baizhu Fuzi Decoction) into French and sent it home; French newspapers reported the story, which alarmed Napoleon III, who consequently presented Asada Sohaku with many gifts.

Moreover, after the fourteenth Tokugawa shogun Iemochi was misdiagnosed by Western doctors for beriberi, Asada Sohaku examined him and judged the illness incurable; Iemochi indeed soon died. Asada Sohaku's fame then soared throughout Japan.

So the Meiji-era Western doctors who had so vigorously advocated abolishing kampo medicine were left in an awkward position.

Asada Sohaku, style name Liyuan, is remembered by the Japanese in this saying: "Before Liyuan there was no Liyuan; after Liyuan there is no Liyuan." From the age of sixteen, while learning and practicing medicine every day, Asada Sohaku also persisted in writing, leaving behind a vast body of kampo literature, and ultimately became a giant who towers over the history of Japanese kampo medicine.

Today Japan's modern medicine leads the world, yet kampo medicine still thrives. Some kampo formulas commonly used in Japan sell by the tens of millions to over a hundred million doses each year. Japan's kampo circle has also produced renowned masters—Yumoto Kyumin, Otsuka Keisetsu, and Kazado Domei, among others. Kampo products have even become one of Japan's signature exports.

Modern China was influenced most by Japan. On one hand, the Japanese war of aggression brought Chinese people deeply humiliating and painful historical memories. On the other, Japan's experience of falling behind and being beaten after its own period of isolation closely resembled China's. This nearby island nation had moved toward modernization one step ahead of China, and its reforms became a model for Chinese to study.

So since the Republican era, Chinese TCM, like Japan's kampo, has been fiercely attacked by modern Western medicine. The most formidable figure in the anti-TCM camp was Yu Yunxiu. Calls to abolish TCM grew loud, and the Republican government at one point considered legislation to ban it.

Somewhat echoing Japan's situation, China's TCM circle produced great physicians such as Shi Jinmo, Kong Bohua and Xiao Longyou. When the families of statesmen like Yuan Shikai and Wang Jingwei fell ill with diseases Western medicine could not cure, these physicians cured them with ease.

The elder TCM statesmen memorialized the government one after another, setting forth the reasons TCM could not be abolished. In the end, Yu Yunxiu, Wu Liande and the others could only watch as TCM continued to survive.

Every country has its traditional medicine. India's Ayurveda is even called the mother of medicine. As late as the eighteenth century, the surgical success rate of the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest still far exceeded that of the best Western hospitals in Paris.

But only China's traditional medicine—the ancient system now called TCM—still possesses extraordinary vitality. Not only TCM physicians study and research it; countless Western-medicine physicians do as well.

In the field of oncology, as far as I know, there are at least Western-medicine internist masters like Academician Sun Yan and Western-medicine surgical masters like Professor Jia Jiafu, who have not only continually called for the complementary strengths of Chinese and Western medicine but have themselves thrown themselves into research on TCM anticancer therapy. Former Health Minister Chen Zhu also won a series of international medical awards for his breakthrough research on the traditional Chinese herbal remedy arsenic.

Interestingly, among the opinion leaders who attack TCM, there are few genuine clinicians. Of course, among the charlatans who tout TCM as miraculously all-powerful, few are genuine TCM clinicians either.

Speaking from my own experience, a growing proportion of my patients are now referred by Western doctors from all over the country. I have personally felt that many clinical Western physicians hold quite friendly attitudes toward TCM; among my patients there are quite a few Western doctors and their families. Though it is true that many Western physicians are strongly opposed to TCM.

Disease is hard to treat; every clinician has a felt understanding of those four words. As long as a physician is at all honest, I think most realize that everything they have spent a lifetime learning still has large shortcomings and cannot solve every patient's problem.

Patients we ourselves are helpless about are often cured by other doctors; the longer one practices, the more such sights one sees. The Qian hexagram of the I Ching says, "A modest gentleman governs himself with humility." An arrogant doctor is no good doctor and no honest person. Most reliable doctors possess the spirit of "governing oneself with humility."

So in the medical world, the coexistence of Chinese and Western medicine is an undeniable fact, and there are many who cooperate amicably. There are also many who master both—Professor Shao Changrong, for instance, was both a TCM expert in lung disease and able to perform a variety of operations himself.

Exalting Western medicine and disparaging Chinese, or exalting Chinese and disparaging Western, is merely a one-sided view.

Nor should Chinese medicine in the new era remain stuck in ancient history, refusing to move forward. TCM physicians and enthusiasts should take seriously new research—for instance, on the harm caused by aristolochic acid. Medicine is fundamentally the art of saving people; leveraging modern science and technology to push Chinese medicine toward greater safety and efficacy should be welcomed, not flatly rejected.

Once one has studied medicine to a certain age and depth, one should make no distinction between Chinese and Western medicine and harbor no sectarian bias.

As for ordinary people, whether they trust Chinese or Western medicine is probably decided more by their own life experience than by the articles of various opinion leaders.

People's understandings differ, but each person's understanding has its own deep-rooted origins and cannot be changed by a few words from others.

For a doctor, it is enough to calmly receive the patients who trust him. Joining the Chinese-versus-Western debate is a sheer waste of time. To harbor in one's heart the idea that Chinese and Western medicine are at war is also narrow-minded.

I offer this article in reply to the readers who continually ask my views on the Chinese-Western medical debate.