Preface by Academician Shen Ziyi to His Teacher Professor Jiang Chunhua's Work TCM and Science

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Professor Jiang Chunhua. I received Teacher Jiang Chunhua's education and training for nearly forty years, and I hold boundless reverence and longing for him.

In 1954, Professor Jiang Chunhua joined Huashan Hospital, affiliated with the Shanghai First Medical College, as head of the TCM department. In 1955, three years after my graduation, I had already been assigned to work at Huashan Hospital. According to the TCM policy that had just been announced, the organization arranged Professor Jiang Chunhua to be my teacher, adopting the traditional apprenticeship model. The teacher knew that I had always received a systematic, strict Anglo-American formal education, and that Western medicine had already taken the first seat in my mind. So he had me begin with the Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage), the Jinkui Yaolue (Essentials from the Golden Cabinet), the Neijing, and the Shennong Bencaojing (Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica). I spent particularly much time on the Shanghan Lun—not memorizing the clauses by rote, but understanding its essence, namely the laws of pattern differentiation and treatment, which I distilled from comparing those complex clauses. Later he had me study on my own the Waitai Miyao (Secret Essentials of the Outer Tai) and the Qianjin Fang (Thousand Golden Prescriptions), summarizing the herbs used for each disease pattern and seeking practical effect from the most frequently appearing chief herbs. In this way he let me understand TCM theory and the true meaning of treating disease in a scientific manner. The teacher taught with all his heart. He was stout and feared the heat; on afternoons of sweltering summer, when the wooden-floored TCM office was like a steam room, he would sometimes pour cold water over his head and then sit down to teach. He poured into nurturing this new shoot all the enthusiasm of a gardener.

While I spent half my day studying TCM theory, I also accompanied the teacher on his rounds. I saw him treat the same asthma patient, because of the season of onset, constitutional changes, and different inducing factors, with four completely different prescriptions in succession. I also saw that diseases that looked entirely different to Western medicine—malaria, dysentery, asthma, and chyluria—when they showed "qi deficiency" at a certain stage, could all be treated effectively with the same qi-boosting prescription. This application of the differentiation principle of "different treatment for the same disease, and same treatment for different diseases" showed the teacher's profound learning and high attainment. In treating disease and choosing formulas he was not bound to one pattern. Such insightful scholarship and such bold style in treatment could only be deeply experienced by being his student, living with him morning and night. It not only established my confidence in learning TCM but also exerted a key and far-reaching influence on my later development. The teacher taught earnestly, and the student studied hard; in February 1959, the two of us, teacher and student, were jointly awarded the Gold Medal by the Ministry of Health.

The teacher's mastery of medicine was inseparable from a lifetime of broad learning and diligence. In his youth he read the commentaries on the Thirteen Classics, the philosophers of the Zhou and Qin, and the Twenty-Four Histories. He also read the collected works of Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Wang Anshi, and Ouyang Xiu, the major authors of the Ming and Qing, the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Yuan, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and Christianity, as well as unofficial histories and anecdotes. At the same time he read widely in Western philosophy, psychology, and natural science. He accumulated little wealth in his life; most of his income went to buying books, and for decades he never let a book leave his hand. He said, "Only after deep accumulation can one put forth lightly. Reading must also involve thinking; the formation of thought requires learning from many sides, otherwise one's thinking is narrow and one's specialty cannot achieve greatness." What is more precious is that he held clear judgments of right and wrong in scholarship, without sectarian bias. He evaluated the physicians of past dynasties, holding that the ancients should be respected but not blindly worshipped. Ancient physicians had their unique achievements, but also their extremes, and their preferences in medication. Later generations, seeing their uniqueness, would attach a label such as "school"—the fire-draining school, the yin-nourishing school, the earth-supplementing school, and so on. But medicine is science, not literature; science admits only right and wrong, and allows no personal likes, dislikes, or prejudices. Therefore, of the legacy of ancient physicians one should take the essence and discard the dregs, and still less should one have personal sectarian divisions. Thus, in prescribing he never championed a single school: for yang deficiency he used the warm-tonification of Zhang Jingyue; for yin deficiency he followed the yin-nourishing approach of Wang Mengying; he never despised simple folk remedies, and whenever they were genuinely effective he adopted them. He truly drew on the strengths of all schools and gathered widely from all formulas.

His attitude toward Western medicine and integrated Chinese-Western medicine was extremely clear. He said, "In the Shiji's 'Biographies of Bian Que and the Duke of Cang,' the Grand Scribe wrote: The misfortune of patients is that they have many illnesses; the misfortune of physicians is that they have too few ways. In order to improve efficacy, I draw on the ways of Western medicine; I believe this does not violate the teachings of the ancients." He also pointed out that "taking root in TCM" means standing on TCM's own ground, genuinely centering on TCM theory, and not losing the spirit of pattern differentiation and treatment; "making the West serve China" means, under today's conditions, fully applying the knowledge of Western medicine and modern science to overcome the historical limitations of TCM, so as to elucidate mechanisms and make research results serve the improvement of TCM's clinical efficacy to the greatest extent; "making the past serve the present"—a homely metaphor—is wearing old shoes but walking a new road, so that the spirit of TCM is constantly carried forward. When he heard some individual TCM practitioners say, "Doing integrated Chinese-Western research, they take away all the treasures and leave a little garbage," the teacher held that TCM is a bequest left by our ancestors, which both Chinese and Western medicine can study. By whatever method, whoever can carry it forward is the heir. Such a view stemmed from the teacher's scholarly spirit of constant innovation.

The teacher said that what was good about TCM was that it was allowed to "change shape." He considered himself a TCM physician but did not wish to be bound by tradition. He said TCM could not remain always the same; changing shape is progress, and only by constantly progressing can TCM have a future. The most representative of his academic ideas was the "interception and reversal" (jieduan niuzhuan) doctrine. The teacher was quite unimpressed by Ye Tianshi's "defense-qi-construction-blood" theory for treating warm diseases and by the compliant therapy of "clearing heat only when it reaches the qi level"; he admired the Neijing's saying that "the superior physician rescues disease at its budding stage" and advocated intercepting disease in its beginning. He said: "Clinical experience shows that, following Ye's approach of 'tracking behind the enemy' and letting the pathogenic evil rage, one is often left scorched; whereas striking the pathogen head-on at an early stage can intercept its deepening and prevent it from developing beyond control. Today, in treating lobar pneumonia and epidemic hemorrhagic fever, if one directly applies heat-clearing and toxin-resolving without following the defense-qi-construction-blood sequence, the efficacy is very high. This shows that interception therapy is theoretically and practically superior to, and more positive than, simply treating by defense-qi-construction-blood." The teacher treated disease with both courage and insight. Taking only his unique interception-and-reversal method as an example, he cured many difficult and complicated diseases and saved many critically ill patients. He not only had extremely rich clinical experience but also wrote books and articulated theory, full of dialectical thought; one feels his writing has great vitality and a tiger-like energy.

The teacher was skilled in medicine and also prized medical virtue. He quoted the Qing dynasty physician Fei Boxiong: "It is permissible to study medicine if one wishes to save people; it is impermissible if one wishes to pursue private gain." He declared that these words were perhaps not quite fitting for the present age, a bit old-fashioned, yet he did not regret them. His last essay while ill in his later years, titled "The Pursuit of Knowledge and the Valuing of Virtue Are the Essentials of the Physician," was his heartfelt voice. Professor Jiang Chunhua was an outstanding member of the Chinese Communist Party. He loved the TCM cause of his motherland all his life. He was upright and unyielding, generous and easy in dealing with others, honest and unassuming, of noble medical virtue, tireless in teaching, and eager to promote the younger generation. His innovative scholarly ideas and achievements have made outstanding contributions to modern TCM and to the integrated Chinese-Western medicine cause!

On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Teacher Jiang Chunhua's birth, I respectfully offer this piece as the preface to TCM and Science. Although the teacher has left us forever, his academic thought and noble spirit will be forever engraved in my heart.

Shen Ziyi, aged eighty. Prefaced in Shanghai, autumn 2008.

Editor's note: This is the preface written by Academician Shen Ziyi for his teacher Professor Jiang Chunhua's work TCM and Science. Academician Shen Ziyi originally studied Western medicine, later studied TCM under Professor Jiang Chunhua, and thereafter made substantial contributions to the TCM theory of visceral manifestations (zangxiang) and related areas; he is a major contemporary TCM figure.

Professor Jiang Chunhua is one of the outstanding figures in contemporary Chinese TCM. He lived a lifetime in poverty yet contentment, loving TCM, making great contributions to relieving patients' diseases and to the reform and innovation of TCM theory.

The reason I typed out this preface word by word and repost it verbatim is that, although Academician Shen Ziyi's prose for Professor Jiang is plain, its views deeply resonate with me. This article is also my own basic standpoint in studying TCM.

I have studied medicine for many years and have also been confused. Now, over thirty-six years old, having settled myself, I can finally say I have entered a little through the door. A person who studies medicine should do so to rescue the dying and heal the wounded, to relieve patients' suffering and treat disease—not to fool followers and swindle money. Whether practicing medicine or writing, every word one says and every thing one does must be taken seriously and responsibly, worthy of one's own conscience. One must not mislead patients out of personal prejudice and cause them to miss the best treatment window. When one person dies, a whole family grieves. The physician deals directly with the god of life and death; if a physician is not factual, he will harm countless people.

Since I began studying medicine, I have gone through phases of blind faith in, confusion about, and doubt of both Chinese and Western medicine. Every time a relative or patient, after every possible rescue by Chinese and Western medicine, still could not be saved and left this world with regret, it made me seriously reconsider medicine. Medicine is a science that arose to solve human disease, not a kind of art existing for personal preference. The attitude toward studying medicine should be rigorous, not romantic. Whenever I see some medical students bragging, puffing up either TCM or Western medicine to the point of the miraculous and misleading the multitude, I cannot help but feel regret.

I reread Academician Shen Ziyi's preface when I was thirty-six. Having passed through my period of confusion about Chinese and Western medicine, I had resolved to achieve something in medicine. After reading it I had strong feelings, so I repost the preface and add the above notes.