In the early 19th century, a major event occurred in China, the Republic of China government put forward the "abolition of traditional Chinese medicine" motion, although this event finally subsided, but it brought far-reaching impact, the formation of a century-long dispute between Chinese and Western medicine. This incident did not happen by chance, but has a complex historical origin and background.
The representative of Western culture is the cross, a long and short piece of metal welded into the shape of a cross, indicating stability, solidity, and mechanics. The symbol of Eastern culture is the Tai Chi diagram, in which the yin and yang fish merge into each other, indicating movement, harmony, and roundness. There is a big difference between the philosophical meanings embedded in the two.
The "Chinese and Western medicine dispute" seems to be only medical, but its root cause is "Chinese and Western culture" dispute. Due to the closed-door policy of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, China was cut off from the world, and its scientific and technological development came to a standstill. Missed the golden period of development of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution promoted the development of science and technology and gave birth to modern medicine. At that time, as a big agricultural country, China's senior government officials paid more attention to the grain harvest, and there was no concept of industry. The most important people in the society were the court officials, and doctors, merchants and handicraftsmen were at the end of the social ladder. The greatest pursuit of a scholar was to get a meritocracy and earn a salary from the state, and if he could not get a meritocracy, then he would be "either a good prime minister or a good doctor". Most of the scholars took the doctor as their second choice to make a living.
The inheritance of the medical profession is still mainly among the scholars, and Zhang Zihe, a medical expert in the Jin Dynasty, wrote a book called "Confucianism", which shows that Confucian scholars should be aware of the medical profession in order to support their relatives. Knowledge of medicine is also an essential skill for ancient scholars, because in the long journey of study and examination, knowledge of medicine is undoubtedly a life-saving skill, which can protect oneself as well as save others, and can even make a living for oneself in the future. Therefore, when the family got a minor illness, they did not need to find a doctor, but could solve the problem at home. This also resulted in the absence of large-scale Chinese medicine colleges and medical centers in ancient times, the Imperial Hospital only served the royal family, the scale and number of ordinary medical centers were limited, some of the doctors were serving the general public in the form of traveling doctors, and the inheritance of the medical profession was only on a small scale and in a small area. But this state of affairs was broken from the Opium War, the western powers were eager to open the door of China's trade in order to gain access to China's wealth and resources, although China ceded its land and made reparations, the western powers knew that the great eastern powers could not be oppressed for a long time, because for thousands of years the Chinese people had never been conquered by foreigners, but instead assimilated the outsiders who had occupied this land. The victory in the war was only temporary, so in order to occupy China for a long time, it was necessary to win culturally and ideologically, to instill Western values and ideas in the Chinese people, so that all those who received Western education would identify themselves with the Western concepts and reject Chinese traditions, so that the Chinese people would no longer identify themselves with China, and this would be a complete victory.
Early in the Qing Dynasty, the European countries are still afraid of China, but the fortress is always broken from the inside, the Qing Dynasty, more internal than external, before the invasion of the Eight-Power Allied Forces under the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Qing Dynasty due to the Qing Dynasty royal family and the various interests of the game caused by the national difficulties at the head of the country, but the existing people are willing to go to the country to die, the Huai Army, Xiang Army and other major forces of the war equipment and the European and American powers are not comparable to if you really fight for their lives. If you really fight hard, you can compete with the great powers. It is because of the gap between China and Europe and the United States, China set off the foreign affairs movement, copying the Western model, as long as the Western things are good, China's ancient things need to be eliminated, as if as long as all the Western things to move to China, China will be able to become powerful. But they have overlooked an important issue, the rise of the modern West is not the inventors and entrepreneurs but the change of the national system, which is to determine the strength of the country and the decline of the root of the foreign affairs movement, but did not change the fundamental.
Some people blame the decline of modern China on the inferiority of its traditional culture to Western culture, leading to the "East-meets-West Cultural Controversy". As part of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese medicine was dismissed as old tradition and culture. A number of influential thinkers have made statements in this regard, misleading many ordinary people. 1879, the master of the national academy, Yu Yue published "abolition of medical theory", and then published "medicine," put forward the "medical can be abolished, medicine can not be abolished" point of view. 1925, China's education sector decided to incorporate Chinese medicine into the school system. In 1925, the Chinese educational community decided to incorporate Chinese medicine into the school system, but when they asked the Ministry of Education for approval, the Western medical community, represented by Yu Yunxiu, petitioned the ministry and firmly resisted. The Ministry of Education used this as an excuse to categorically reject the request for Chinese medicine to be included in the university faculties, and from February 23 to 26, 1929, the Ministry of Health of the Nanjing government held the first session of the Central Health Commissioners. At the meeting, four proposals on the "abolition of Chinese medicine" were discussed, and finally the abolition of Chinese medicine was adopted - "Principles for the Registration of Old Medical Cases". However, shortly thereafter, the Civil Service of the National Government authorized the revocation of all decrees banning Chinese medicine. However, it still prohibited TCM practitioners from participating in the use of western methods and medicines, prohibited TCM schools from registering cases, and prohibited TCM practitioners from opening hospitals. The schools of traditional Chinese medicine in various places were transformed into traditional Chinese medicine training centers, and in the following year they were renamed as traditional Chinese medicine societies.
Mr. Hu Shih, a master of Chinese literature, once made the remark of "abolishing Chinese medicine". In 1920, he was diagnosed as an advanced diabetic by a Western doctor, and could not continue the treatment, and Lu Zhong'an, a great Chinese medicine practitioner, cured him with traditional Chinese medicine, which made Mr. Hu Shih have a new understanding of Chinese medicine. Regrettably, Mr. Liang Qichao, another scholar who had proposed the abolition of Chinese medicine, died young at the age of 57 due to misdiagnosis and medical malpractice by Western medical practitioners. Chinese medicine often has the efficacy of turning decay into magic in treating illnesses because Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment is to treat illnesses with the least method and the least allocation of resources, which was also the case in ancient times when resources were limited and doctors had to cure patients by the most convenient and least costly means. Modern medicine is backed by industry and manufacturing, the invention of a large number of medical equipment, instead of manual diagnosis, but the cost of seeing a doctor is much higher, the doctor does not rely on equipment only by bare hands can be accurately diagnose the disease has been very difficult to see.
In fact, the Chinese and Western cultures have their own strengths, and it is not necessary to compete.
The Chinese medicine has inherited the ancient Chinese idea of "unity of heaven and mankind". Now we know from ancient times handed down three books "I Ching", "Huang Di Nei Jing", "Classic of Mountains and Seas", these three books cover the essence of the entire ancient Chinese civilization, so far thousands of years has not yet been studied thoroughly, of which "Huang Di Nei Jing" can be regarded as the ancient Chinese medicine of the great success. The origin of the idea of "the unity of man and heaven" is no longer verifiable, but modern archaeological discoveries show that this idea has been around since the Neolithic period, or perhaps even earlier. And this idea is not unique to China. The ancients believed that there was a connection between heaven and earth and everything else, a connection so subtle and close that ordinary people could not perceive it, but it did exist.
The operation of the stars in the sky is related to the flow of blood and qi in the human body. One of the stars corresponds to a certain point, when the stars run to a certain position, this point will have a particularly strong sense, the human body is a small world always interacting with heaven and earth. The human body meridian research Chinese and foreign scientists have been exploring for decades, still not completely unveiled the secrets of the meridian, there are many different opinions, but they are unable to explain the meridian with accurate scientific language.
Some studies have found that the reason acupuncture and herbal tonics work on the human meridians is because there are energy substances smaller than molecules at work. Although modern technology does not yet recognize why this is, it does not prevent us from using herbs to cure diseases. It is also believed that the effects of acupuncture and tonics are related to the theory of "quantum entanglement". The first step in curing a disease is to heal the damaged meridian system, and when the meridian system is repaired, the human body will naturally return to normal. Perhaps one day in the future, mankind will really discover the secret.