What Books Should You Read to Learn TCM Anti-Cancer Treatment?
Because I have long been writing articles on TCM anti-cancer treatment, readers who are interested in TCM cancer care often consult me about which books they should read to study TCM treatment of cancer. Today, without presuming to be an authority, I recommend a few books to readers who are interested in this question.
Cancer, by broad classification, belongs to the category of external-medicine (surgical) diseases in TCM. The TCM disease names yongju (carbuncles and deep abscesses), yingliu (goiters and nodules), ru yan (breast "rock"), and shirong (withering lymphatic malignancy) all fall under the various benign and malignant tumors we speak of today. Therefore, to learn TCM anti-cancer treatment, one must first study TCM external medicine.
However, external medicine alone is not enough. As the great Ming-dynasty TCM surgery master Chen Shigong said: "Medicine is divided into internal and external; treating the external is harder than treating the internal. Why? Internal ailments may not reach the exterior, but external ailments must root in the interior. If one does not have the right method for this, even a disease of the skin and acupoints becomes incurable."
This passage means that medicine falls into two major categories, external and internal, but external medicine is harder than internal medicine. Why? Internal diseases may not induce external lesions, but the root of an external disease lies in internal conditions. Therefore, a TCM external-medicine physician must not only be proficient in external-medicine knowledge but also in internal-medicine knowledge.
Nowadays some TCM doctors reflexively oppose surgery for cancer patients, which is quite wrong. TCM external medicine has always required its physicians to master the "art of the scalpel"; that is, in ancient times, Chinese TCM surgeons regularly performed various operations on patients.
Modern aseptic surgery is far more advanced than the "scalpel art" of ancient TCM, and the probability of intraoperative infection in patients is much lower, so it is inevitable that some surgical methods of TCM external medicine have been phased out.
In an ideal situation, a TCM external-medicine physician should not only master the common knowledge of both internal and external medicine but also be able to perform various operations and use the various "external treatment methods" of TCM external medicine.
When it comes specifically to cancer, today both TCM and Western medicine adopt combined internal-and-external comprehensive treatment. A person learning TCM cancer treatment therefore needs to study both internal and external medicine.
On the internal-medicine side, at the very least one must study the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage), Jingui Yaolue (Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer), and Wenbing Tiaobian (Systematic Identification of Warm Diseases). Going further, one should read the complete works of the Four Great Masters of the Jin-Yuan period—without being bound to any sect, study them all: the medical writings of Zhang Yuanyuan, Li Dongyuan, Zhang Zihe, and Zhu Danxi should be read, as should the works of Xue Lizhai, Zhang Jingyue, Li Zhongzi, and Cheng Guopeng. The commonly used formulas should be memorized.
In addition, I especially recommend two books: one is the Ming-dynasty physician Wang Qishi's Lixu Yuanjian (Principles of Regulating Deficiency Damage), and the other is the Qing-dynasty physician Wang Qingren's Yilin Gaicuo (Correction of Errors in Medical Classics). Why do I single out these two books?
The book Lixu Yuanjian is of very high clinical guiding value for the right-supporting (fuzheng) treatment of cancer patients; Wang Qishi can be regarded as the founding master of treating deficiency-damage diseases.