When doctors and patients communicate, they always hear the sigh from patients that "Western medicine treats the symptoms, while Chinese medicine treats the root cause." Although patients say such things to me, a Chinese medicine practitioner, they are undoubtedly expressing their belief, admiration and praise for Chinese medicine. However, when I hear this famous saying that is well-known to women and children, I can't help but feel disgusted. I often blurt out and ask: "What is a symptom? What is a root cause? What symptoms do Western medicine treat? What root causes does Chinese medicine treat?" Since then, all the patients I have come into contact with have said this sentence, without exception, they follow what everyone else says and don't understand what they mean. I believe that all readers also know this "famous saying". Have you thought about these four questions I asked?
What is even more sad is that around this "famous saying", the so-called fighters of the two camps of traditional Chinese and Western medicine are like clowns, constantly quarreling, attacking each other, and creating hype. Readers may also wish to go online to "Baidu" to see if they have sorted out the connotation and denotation of "symptoms and root causes", and then use this as a reference to compare one by one whether Chinese and Western medicine "treats the symptoms and the root cause"?
In the early days of studying Chinese medicine, I believed in this "famous saying". However, with the continuous accumulation of knowledge and rational thinking, I gradually realized that it was pure nonsense and wrong.
The so-called "nonsense" means that there is no way to check and there is no basis. I have spent a lot of time searching for the academic source of this sentence, hoping to find out which sage analyzed and proposed such a conclusion. But it was a useless effort. The result I got was that this "famous saying" was purely a rumor, which appeared roughly in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China in the era of "a needle, a handful of grass" and has been passed down to this day. I have no answer as to where the rumor started. Although many folk proverbs are full of wisdom and philosophy, I always insist that we should first put a question mark on the correctness of such "famous sayings" and then think and judge rationally.
The so-called "specimen" originally refers to branches, nodes, tips (standards) and roots, original (original). The concept of "specimen" was introduced and developed by traditional Chinese medicine. It has many connotations in traditional Chinese medicine. In summary, it mainly includes the following aspects: patient-oriented, medical workers as the standard; possession-based, image as the standard; pre-disease-based, The following disease is the standard; righteousness is the basis, and disease is the standard; the cause of the disease is the basis, syndromes and symptoms are the standard; syndrome is the basis, and the symptoms are the standard. In addition, there are luck specimens, meridians specimens, etc. The treatment of symptoms and root causes discussed in traditional Chinese medicine treatment mainly refers to the aforementioned aspects.
In terms of "patient-oriented, medical workers as the standard", traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the subjective initiative of the patient, which is the most "centered", emphasizing that "if God does not work, medicine will be ineffective" and "doctors can give birth to children." ”, “Healing the disease now heals the person”. Since the establishment of the "biological-psychological-social" model, modern Western medicine has also emphasized "patient-centered". Doctor-patient communication, patient compliance, and patient's physical and mental adjustment are also areas that modern Western medicine attaches great importance to. In this regard, there is no difference between the two as to "who treats the symptoms and who treats the root cause."
From the perspective of "Tibet is the foundation, symptoms are the standard", TCM diagnosis and treatment emphasizes "looking outside and looking inside", emphasizing that external symptoms are the reflection of the internal organs' functions, and the internal organs should be analyzed through the symptoms. The essence of the dysfunction is treated to restore the function of the organs. In terms of diagnosis and treatment, modern Western medicine also emphasizes differential diagnosis through symptoms, analysis and determination of the condition of the body's tissues and organs, with the priority of restoring organ function. Although there is a big difference between Chinese and Western medicine in the systematic construction of human tissue structure, there is no essential difference in the principle of diagnosis and treatment at this point.