Today's third update: Chapter 2481! 3/4!
What was the biggest difference between Western medicine, or so-called modern medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine?
Those who blindly praised Western medicine and those who blindly praised traditional Chinese medicine were both extremely one-sided.
Modern medicine trained all kinds of medical students like an assembly line, slapped corresponding labels onto various illnesses—what they were called, what symptoms they caused, what instruments to use, what tests to run, what medicine to take, what surgeries to perform.
It was a systematic method of treating illness, commonly expressed as: Take an anti-inflammatory pill, get a blood test...
The advantage of this kind of medicine was that technology changed lives and medical care had become widely available. So-called modern medicine was formed by incorporating the scientific theories of all medical fields; it was not something exclusive to the West. Chinese patent medicines, for example, were products created by combining traditional Chinese medicinal principles.
The most fundamental aspect of traditional Chinese medicine was observation, listening and smelling, inquiry, and pulse diagnosis.
It actually fell within the scope of modern medicine too, so why was it separated out?
It was precisely because modern medicine emphasized science and corresponding logic, while traditional Chinese medicine placed greater emphasis on talent, experience, and a certain degree of mysticism.
They were like two circles that touched at a single point without fully merging.
True traditional Chinese medicine, especially when it came to prescribing medicine, had to account for each person's constitution and pathology. Even the dosage in every prescription would be adjusted according to the patient's actual condition.
It did not have modern medicine's rigid rule of using a specific medicine for a specific disease.
Following textbooks by rote would never make someone a mature practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, because its spiritual