The Principles, Methods, Formulas and Herbs of TCM Cancer Treatment (Preface)

I have long wished, despite my humble abilities, to write a monograph on TCM treatment of cancer, systematically organizing what I have read and clinically learned over the years for others' reference.

But for one thing, I have always felt my level was not good enough to venture such a book; for another, my work has been so busy that I have had neither the time nor the energy. So the plan has been shelved for a long time.

In recent years I have begun to feel that time is running out. This writing project is, for me personally, a massive undertaking that may take over a decade, or even the whole rest of my life, to complete. If I do not start while I am still in my prime, this life's ideal will probably never be realized.

I have seen many clinicians with outstanding results who, all their lives, wanted to write a medical book, yet had to give up because their energy failed; their hard-won clinical experience was never widely disseminated, which is a real pity.

I have long studied cancer treatment, focusing especially on TCM approaches. Cancer, as a high-incidence disease of modern society, afflicts countless families, including my own; my mother died young of it. Her early death grieved me deeply and strengthened my resolve to study and treat cancer.

I was originally a science and engineering student. Although my family has a tradition of TCM and folk herbal medicine, for a long time I more greatly admired modern medicine.

That changed only when I myself developed stubborn illnesses like asthma; after consulting famous Chinese and Western specialists in Beijing and Shanghai—some even at the level of academicians—without result, I finally had to study both systems, solving some of my own health problems through integrated methods including exercise and medicine, and only then gradually shed my prejudice against TCM.

Now I am partial to neither Chinese nor Western medicine. If time permits, I read as widely as I can in the classics of both systems to enrich my medical knowledge, and even read many works of the humanities and social sciences that seem unrelated to medicine but are in fact deeply connected.

Only by reading widely and accumulating knowledge and experience over time can one gradually clear one's blind spots and become a narrow person untouched by prejudice and arrogance.

But why have I chosen to write specifically a monograph on TCM rather than Western treatment of cancer?

It is because, in practice, I have truly experienced the effect of Chinese medicine on cancer patients, and also deeply felt the real plight of TCM being marginalized. I therefore very much hope to contribute a little to the inheritance and development of Chinese medicine.

The Japanese Kampo physician Tsumura Shinno (Tumoto Shinno), in his work Kanpo Igaku (Imperial Chinese Medicine), wrote: "I am in truth an eclectic between Chinese and Western medicine; I wish to help develop the strengths of Western medicine and discard its weaknesses, further enriching them with the essence of Chinese medicine to form the source of a new, integrated art. That is my aim. Yet now, when I alone promote Chinese medicine, it is because this learning is declining, barely holding its last breath, on the verge of extinction, so I regard bringing out its unique strengths as the urgent task; and where I point out the weaknesses of Western medicine, it is something I must do for the sake of comparative discussion. Do I truly enjoy criticizing Western medicine for pleasure?"

I strongly identify with these words of Tsumura Shinno.

From the Meiji Restoration, Japan legislated to abolish Kampo medicine, which had derived from TCM; afterwards Japanese Kampo suffered a severe blow. To reverse its decline, many outstanding figures in Japanese Kampo medicine kept raising their voices, until Kampo finally achieved some revival in modern Japan.

Since the Opium War, China has undergone earth-shaking change. After the Western powers opened China's doors, Western science and technology flooded in, and TCM suffered an unprecedented shock. From the late Qing onward, there have been repeated calls to abolish TCM, and even today there are still loud voices demanding it.

But TCM has deep popular roots in China. It is an ancient yet ever-renewing medicine, the most distinctive of the world's traditional medicines; it still has vigorous vitality today. The reason is that TCM genuinely has practical efficacy and can play a role in treating various diseases.

It is undeniable that human medicine keeps progressing. Modern medicine, as the mainstream, has great advantages in treating major illness, especially in success rates where traditional medicine cannot compare.

So my writing this book is not intended to deny Western medicine and exalt TCM alone. I hope, at a time when modern mainstream medicine flourishes, to leave something for the survival and development of TCM, for the reference of medical workers and patients in treating cancer.

Personally, I very much do not wish to join the "Chinese vs. Western," or "traditional vs. modern," medical dispute.

As a patient, honestly, if modern medicine has not given us the help we want and we still stubbornly refuse traditional medicine, that is not wisdom but folly.

The very reason traditional medicine still has so many adherents is that modern medicine cannot yet solve every medical problem. If future medicine develops to the point where it can solve all human health problems without traditional medicine, I think traditional medicine will naturally pass away on its own.

I have always believed that a true medical student has nothing to be arrogant about, because we are fated to endure countless failures in our lives.

Medicine's inherent uncertainty means that, although we can successfully save some patients, we cannot save every one. A doctor who cures half of those who seek him is already remarkable.

If someone who has studied medicine is still full of arrogance and prejudice, I can only say that such a student has learned very superficially, and needs richer life experience and broader learning to clear his blind spots.

Only by turning ourselves into a single drop of water that merges into the ocean can we become great. Each of us is as small as an ant, as insignificant as a grain in the vast sea; but when all our strengths merge, we become truly formidable. I do not advocate attacking other medical schools out of personal preference.

We medical people, whether Chinese or Western, should offer up our experience and even the lessons of our failures for others to learn from, just as we ourselves every day learn from others' experience and lessons.

Physicians of all times are one community; there is no need to attack or discriminate against one another, but rather to learn from each other's strengths.

As early as two thousand years ago, the Grand Scribe Sima Qian, writing the Records of the Grand Historian, clearly recognized: "What the masses suffer from is suffering from too many diseases; what physicians suffer from is suffering from too few ways to treat them." This means the lay public is most vexed by the multitude of diseases, while physicians are most vexed by the scantiness of the art they command.

The Grand Scribe already saw that a physician must set aside sectarian bias and study medicine broadly to better serve patients. Why can we not see this?

If a medical student studies, practices, and writes tirelessly all his life, drawing on the strengths of all for the benefit of the people, he can not only save the dying and heal the wounded in life, but continue to do so after death. That, I think, is the mission a medical person should shoulder.

In the broadest sense, all humanity is one community. We have jointly confronted hunger, disease, and disaster, and in the process developed agriculture, science, technology, and medicine. All of this is the crystallization of shared human wisdom and a shared human heritage.

From the days of eating raw flesh and drinking blood to today, human life expectancy has grown from a mere ten-plus years to nearly a hundred. This owes much to the creation and dedication of countless compatriots who have tilled the field of medicine through the ages.

Just as the grains of rice and wheat our ancestors found for us remain the staple foods on our tables and still satisfy our hunger, the experiences our ancestors gained in practice for treating disease can still treat many of our illnesses. Some problems modern medicine cannot solve, traditional medicine can address; we must not dismiss it because it is ancient.

But I also strongly oppose the antiquarian view that venerates only ancient TCM. Because China has always had the tradition of revering Heaven and venerating ancestors, some people refuse to face the reality that human medicine keeps progressing, and hold that ancient TCM is the highest form of medicine.

These TCM devotees cannot bear any criticism of TCM; at the slightest touch they strike back. Such an attitude is wrong. Criticism produces progress. A true clinician must recognize that the theory he has learned is not perfect.

In fact, to this day, few medical theories can be called absolute truth; most are merely medical hypotheses with partial validity. We medical workers should continually strip away the unreasonable parts of these hypotheses, keep innovating, and develop on the foundation of inheritance.

It is precisely because I hold this view that I write this book. My purpose is not to encourage cancer patients to abandon modern medicine and rely solely on TCM.

I hope my readers will rationally recognize that we need neither superstitiously venerate traditional medicine (including TCM) nor dismiss TCM's role.

In treating cancer, Chinese medicine can be one component of an integrated rehabilitation plan. For some patients who reject modern medicine, or for whom repeated modern treatment has failed, choosing TCM alone is also one viable option.

Principle (li), method (fa), formula (fang), and herb (yao) are the four pillars of the traditional TCM theoretical system. Only by mastering all four can one apply TCM skillfully to disease.

This book will therefore be organized according to this TCM tradition, so as to build the knowledge of TCM cancer treatment into a complete system. It is divided into four parts: medical principles, treatment methods, formulas, and medicinal herbs (including various patent medicines).

This book attempts to introduce, comprehensively, the TCM approach to cancer and its complications, and the clinical herbal regimens. It may therefore be quite long; both my writing and your reading will take much time, and I hope readers will bear with me.

In writing this book I shall cite a great many medical texts from China and abroad, ancient and modern—both Chinese and Western. I will try to indicate the sources of my quotations, but omissions may occur; if they do, I hope the original authors will forgive me.

Because my own level is limited, the book will inevitably be incomplete; for its shortcomings, I hope experts will offer corrections.

Also, as I noted earlier, the great majority of medical theories are still only partially valid hypotheses, not absolute truth. The theories and viewpoints I put forward in this book are no exception. Readers should take a rational, not superstitious, attitude toward all of this; criticism and disagreement are welcome.

This serves as the preface.

Zhou Zhiyuan, August 4, 2017