Traditional Medicine in Asia

The difference between the two types
of hospitals lies chiefly in the methods of
treatment. Generally speaking, TCM
hospitals are equipped with facilities for
modern laboratory diagnosis and
emergency treatment. Therefore, the staff
of these hospitals also includes a few
professionals trained in modern Western
medicine. Some Western-trained doctors
prefer to shift to TCM hospitals.
The establishment of TCM hospitals
has played an important role in the
harmonization of traditional and modern
medicine. The earlier conflict between the
two systems had found expression not only
in the contempt in which the practitioners
of modern medicine held the “unscientific”
practices of traditional medicine, but also
in the traditional medical practitioners’
exaggeration of the helplessness of
modern Western medicine in the treatment
of chronic diseases. While the TCM doctors
were not as virulent as their rivals, they, too,
needed to compromise. In TCM hospitals,
modern Western medical professionals
proved the value of their work either by
carrying out laboratory tests for diagnosis
or by the emergency treatment of a chronic
case. Harmonization between the two
medical systems is possible only if they
begin to respect each other.
Confirmation of the efficacy
of traditional medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine has a
brilliant history, but whether it is still of
practical value depends upon its
advantages over modern biomedicine,
particularly as far as its efficacy is
concerned. Traditional literature contains
numerous case reports of successful
treatment of various diseases, but the
diseases were not diagnosed, observed or
recorded in a modern, scientific way.
Harmonization of traditional and modern medicine
Moreover, in most cases the methods of
treatment were highly individualized and
varied from person to person. Therefore,
it is difficult to convince modern-trained
medical doctors to believe in the
effectiveness of traditional medicines. After
the inclusion of traditional medical
practitioners in hospitals of modern
medicine and the establishment of TCM
hospitals, it became possible to carry out
comparative clinical trials. At first, the
diseases studied were those that were
difficult to cure with modern Western
medicine, such as chronic nephritis,
chronic hepatitis and chronic gastritis.
Traditional treatment for these diseases
often achieved better results than
contemporary Western treatment. The
most convincing evidence came from an
epidemic of encephalitis B which broke out
in the early 1950s in northern China. In
those days, modern medicine could do
little to help encephalitis patients, and
could barely provide even symptomatic
relief from the high fever. Traditional
treatment, however, cured a large number
of serious patients and reduced the fatality
considerably. In the mid-1950s,
traditional treatment of haemorrhoids
made a strong impression on moderntrained
surgeons. Traditional necrotizing
therapy for haemorrhoids and ligation
therapy for anal fistulae succeeded in
curing more than 90 per cent of patients.
Moreover, recovery was quicker and
there was less suffering than with modern
surgery. The treatments were wellreceived
by the patients. By the end of
the 1950s, the analgesic effect of
acupuncture was acknowledged by all
and acupuncture analgesia was
successfully used for tooth extraction and
tonsillectomy. In the 1960s, modern
medical circles came to acknowledge the
benefits of herbal treatment for diphtheria
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