The Medicine

Chinese medicine is the world’s oldest literate professional medicine and now serves as primary health care for one-fifth of the world’s population. Initially conceived in models of health and longevity described 2000 years ago in the Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine and other documents, its empirical observations have accumulated into the 21st century with ongoing research into its efficacy in treating and preventing disease. This medicine, understood primarily as acupuncture in the West, is actually broader as it includes a sophisticated herbal pharmacy and practice as well as movement exercises and dietary common sense.

Han dynasty texts (200 B.C.E. to 200 A.D.) describe and discuss the logic of disease pathogenesis and treatments known to affect its progress. Edicts by Song dynasty emperors (960-1279 A.D.) raised the status of doctors to an educated class with an imperial health care system, medical text publishing and imperial herbal pharmacies. Mao’s health care policies, beginning in the 1940’s fused modern medical research and practice with this empirically based medicine to form what is known today in the west as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).