This point (which I mentioned in my oral report, “the difference can be seen in many different areas. The Eastern culture puts more emphasis on looking at an issue holistically while people from the western culture such as Americans tend to analyze different objects independently.”) could be clearly seen from the practices of the Chinese and western medicine.
Deeply rooted in the long-lasting traditional Chinese culture, Chinese medicine was quite advanced in ancient times. Its accomplishments could be seen from the stories of legendary Chinese medical men, such as Hua Tuo and Sun Simiao. A Chinese medical man uses four methods to diagnose a patient, looking (wang), smelling (wen), asking questions (wen) and checking the pulse of the patient (qie). Comparing to today's western medicine which relies heavily on performing laboratory analysis and tests, Chinese medicine can be practiced in an easier and more straight-forward manner, and is able to cure the illnesses at their roots though it takes a long time.
Compared with Chinese medicine, western medicine takes a different way. It studies the function of each organ individually. Moreover, it focuses too much at the superficial phenomena, such as the changes in the surface of an organ. These methods lead that the majority of the western doctors ignore the relationship between different organs and diseases. The result is kinds of like a cancer operation-- the visible part has been cut while there are still invisible danger in the bodyand patients need to use some special substance. Although strong enough to make patients feel they are well, western medicine cannot cure the patients at their roots.
In addition, most of the western medicine has side effects on patients. For example, doctors are able to offer a patient effective western medicine to treat his illness, but they cannot free the patients from the side effects caused by the medicine, which cause damage to normal cells and lead to other problems down the road. In my opinion, Chinese medicine provides a reliable but long-lasting way to cure the patients while western medicine has temporary but strong effects in most cases. Hence, it is difficult to figure out which is better because both have their own advantages and disadvantages.
thanks for the information you provided. it gives us a quite brief overall view of the two. people always say that if your status is not so good, or you get some severe inner disorder, it is better to consult a chinese medical doctor. but if it;s something like a fever or a cold, western medical can heal you sooner.
ReplyDeleteI am proud of our Chinese medicine. Different from western doctors and medicines, Chinese doctor take the patient as a whole while western doctors just focus on where the illness is. And out of doubt, Chinese herbs have fewer side effects on patient. However, since both eastern and western medical treatment has its advantages and disadvantages, in today, I think they two should corporate with each. And in this way they could highly develop our medical system as well as help more patients.
ReplyDeleteEvery coin has two sides and I will choose Chinese medicine or Western medicine according to the circumstances. If my disease was in such a hurry that I might pass away immediately, I will absolutely choose Western medicine. However, if it is a long-term disease and its effect cannot be seen immediately, I will choose Chinese medicine to balance my body. It's correct, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI think Chinese medicine is of great mystery. Sometimes, we can cue a person according to Chinese medicine but cannot be cued by western medicine. While, in some circumstances, Chinese medicine seems not as useful as expected. If science can give some explaination on Chinese medicine method or the system. I would more likely to prefer Chinese medicine. After all, Chinese medicine is produced by nature, while, Western medicine is created by human.
ReplyDeleteBoth Chinese medicine and western medicine have advantages and disadvantages, we couldn't tell which one is better. Maybe we can combine these two medicines together to create a new kind of medicine in the future. This new kind of medicine not only can recover patients diseases completely , but also can cure them in a short time. On that time, I believe that there will be less pain in this world.
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