Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years in the ancient land of China, and after thousands of years of clinical practice, it has been confirmed that Chinese traditional medicine is effective and feasible, whether it is in the treatment of disease, in the prevention of disease, or in the health care. Before Western medicine was introduced to China, our ancestors used Chinese medicine to treat diseases and save countless lives. The treatment of diseases in TCM was macro and comprehensive. But in modern times, with the entry of Western natural science and philosophy, the way of thinking and research methods of Western medicine have posed a challenge to Chinese medicine.
Some scholars believe that Chinese medicine has failed to keep up with the development of advanced science and technology of the times, "the old pot of medicine" decoction is still in use, the diagnosis of the four diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine can not get the basis of conclusive scientific experiments, with the advancement of science and people's mindset is constantly being updated, whether Chinese medicine is scientific, Chinese medicine is in fact whether the validity of the question, and even some scholars have raised the question of whether Chinese medicine is scientific, and whether Chinese medicine is effective. With the advancement of science and the continuous updating of people's concepts of thinking, whether Chinese medicine is scientific and whether it is effective have been seriously questioned. In the history of modern revolution, Chinese medicine has been questioned more than once.
In 1929, the government of the Republic of China passed the "Abolition of Old Medicine to Remove Obstacles to Health". In the "abolition of Chinese medicine case", he proposed six specific ways to gradually eliminate Chinese medicine. First, the disposal of the existing old doctors; second, the registered old doctors to implement supplementary education; third, Chinese medicine is not allowed to diagnose and treat statutory infectious diseases and death diagnosis; fourth, prohibit news magazines to carry out non-scientific medical propaganda; sixth, prohibit the establishment of the old school of medicine.
In 2006, Prof. Zhang Gongyao of Central South University published an article entitled "Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine" in the journal Medicine and Philosophy, which climaxed the controversy over the survival of traditional Chinese medicine. In the face of many challenges, many knowledgeable people in the Chinese medicine sector believe that Chinese medicine is in dire need of reform to adapt to the development of science, and that refusing to update knowledge is a lack of vitality. Other scholars believe that the value of Chinese medicine is far from being realized and has not been given the attention it deserves. The scientific nature of traditional techniques and theories will gradually emerge with the progress of society. Thus revival of tradition becomes another prospect for the development of Chinese medicine. In this controversy, scholars under various propositions have paid efforts in different directions, so that Chinese medicine, like all disciplines, has shown different ends of development.
The five different perspectives of Chinese medicine's efforts are as follows: 1) adhere to the tradition, hoping to return to the original Chinese medicine. 2) resolutely dialectical treatment, all dialectical treatment, and take the road of the new Chinese academy. 3) take the road of combining Chinese and Western medicine. 4) modernization of traditional Chinese medicine: to use modern medicine to understand and explain traditional Chinese medicine, and even to explain the meridian. 5) modern Chinese medicine: to use Chinese medicine to analyze all kinds of medical information in an effort to relieve diseases. It is a general trend that all disciplines are diverging, and Chinese medicine is no exception. It may be better not to pursue a specific unchanging form, but to pursue problem solving. Five online articles can be consulted directly: 1. "Mr. He Sudao's Letter: To Premier Zhu Rongji on the "Eight Old Men's Petition" 2. "Deng Tietao's Revisit to Discriminative Treatment" 3. "The Integration of Chinese and Western Medicine is the Road to Modernization of Chinese Medicine" 4. "What Factors Obstruct the Modernization and Internationalization of the Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine" and 5. "The Advocacy of Modern Chinese Medicine". Advocates of the five directions: modernization of Chinese medicine used to be the direction that the Ministry of Health tried to advocate, accommodating many academicians today; the direction of the combination of Chinese and Western medicine, the real representative figure is academician Chen Keji, president of the Society for the Integration of Chinese and Western Medicine; the representative figure of the retrofuturism is He Zuodao, Jia Qian and so on; the initial direction of the academy of Chinese medicine which insisted on the dialectical approach, the representative figure is Deng Tietao; the representative figure of the modern Chinese medicine is Nie Wentao, Deng Yu and so on.
Developing the tradition, spitting out the old and incorporating the new, combining the East and the West, and facing the contemporary times have become the posture of the development of Chinese medicine, and the basis of the world's attention to Chinese medicine.