Eastern Medicine is based on Wholistic thought.
The ancient Chinese and other cultures maintain the universe is comprised of 5 basic
Elements; Fire, Water, Earth, Wood and Metal.
These 5 Elements relate to the five major systems of the body; Fire-Reproductive System,
Water-Circulatory System, Earth-Digestive System, Wood-Respiratory System, Metal-Immune
System.
In Eastern Medicine the human body has an internal energy, the Chinese call it Chi.
Eastern Medicine presupposes that illness is caused by a
person and/or their body being out of balance with what's natural. The Chinese believe the
ill persons Chi is blocked somewhere in their body. The key to the wholistic medical
philosophy is balance and the idea that the whole is greater that the sum of it's parts.
Example: A HOUSE.
Houses are usually made from materials such as bricks, cement, stone, wood, plumbing and
electrical components, paint, tile, wall-board, etc. BUT the pieces that make-up the house
are not the abstract structure that is the house. The abstract structure that is the house
exists whether or not a material house exists or it's various pieces parts do.
BTW Doctors in China are paid to keep their patients well
and those payments stopped when somebody got ill.
Nutrition is a primary to the theory of wholistic medicine.
There are approximately 20,000 edible plants on the planet, several hundred of which are
needed for nutritional balance and optimum health in the human body. Another word for
these necessary plants are herbs. There are 3 kinds of herbs. Food grade herbs - peas,
corn, broccoli Chinese yam, some ginseng, etc. Medicinal grade herbs - valarian root [the
herb Valium is made from], goldenseal, Echinacea, St. Johns Wort, cannabis, other
ginseng's. Poison grade herbs - deadly night shade, opium, etc. How many the essential
nutritional plants, food grade herbs, do you eat each day?
Reductionism
Western Medicine is based on the idea of reductionism.
Reductionism is the idea that everything can be broken down to it's smallest part. With
the theory of reductionism cause and effect is always in question and must be proved.
According to the reductionist doctrine foods are made of Vitamins, minerals, fats,
carbohydrates and proteins. That's 5 basic elements. Wonder if its a coincidence that
westerners came up with 5 categories, the same number of categories as the Chinese did
over 7000 years ago?
The Western Medical model is to find the little bug or gene
causing the problem and to kill it or give it a drug to kill or alter it chemically. This
allopathic treatment works sometimes but mostly does not heal the patient and many times
the drugs or treatments side effects kill the patient. But what if there is no little bug
and it just malnourished cells causing the problems.
Western Medicine has come up with some
fantastic techniques to save the lives of those injured in accidents or disasters.
If French paramedics had employed the same techniques used by US emergency trauma medicine
teams, Princess Diana would still be alive.
Incredible surgical efforts can now sew dismembered limbs back on the mutilated victims.
Emergency medicine can also save the lives of the very critically burned.
Western medicine is also wonderful for helping orthopedic
and sports injury's. Look how many football players [NFL type] who have played that sport
again after so called career ending knee injures. Look what Picabo Street did in the
Olympics after her knee reconstruction. Also several professional baseball pitchers have
been able to keep their careers after rotator cuff surgery.
The weakness to Western emergency medicine is that it can
not solve chronic conditions or acute problems. Emergency medicine is designed to save
lives after accidents and stabilize the critically ill. In many cases the drugs used to
solve the short term emergency problems actually make the illness or problems worse in the
long run.
BALANCE !!!!!!!
Balance is needed in the health care system and in treatment of the chronically
ill. These two medical systems together comprise the best in total care for human beings.
