WHO InternatIOnal Standard termInOlOgIeS On tradItIOnal medIcIne

4Introduction3. Meeting on the Development of International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine(18–20 October 2005)In October 2005, the Meeting on the Development of International Standard Terminologies for TraditionalMedicine was held in Daegu, Republic of Korea, with 22 experts from eight Member States in attendance. Themajor objective of the meeting was to review the draft terminologies and decide on the English equivalents forthe selected terms. The lists of the temporary advisers and their presentations are introduced in Annex 3.After the Daegu meeting, the number of terms selected was reduced by deleting the names of herbal medicinesand also eliminating duplications – largely by agreement of attendeees. At the request of the 2nd InformalConsultaton and also the Daegu meeting, the definitions for the selected terms have been prepared. Therehave been two rounds of reviews of the draft IST among the international experts group. The list of reviewersis shown in Annex 4.Principles for English expression selection1. Accurate reflection of the original concept of Chinese terms.In this context, it should be stressed that each term is a unit of meaning, which is not necessarily equal tothe summation of meanings of the constituent original Han characters. According to Chinese philology,a character may have several different meanings and is often more like a syllable in English. Generallya compound word, consisting of two or more characters, provides the specific meaning. However, themeaning of a compound word is different from the separate meanings of its components. Furthermore, theappropriateness of an English equivalent should be judged primarily by its accuracy in reflecting the medicalconcept of the Chinese original.2. No creation of new English words.All the English terms included in this document are those that have been collected in universally recognizedEnglish dictionaries. If there are exceptions, they are derived from available English words with somegrammatical modifications.3. Avoidance of pinyin (Romanized Chinese) use.For certain TRM terms, it is extremely difficult to determine English equivalents, and many publications usepinyin. However, it should be stressed that Romanized Chinese is still Chinese and pinyin is not a realtranslation. In addition, Han characters are similar in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, but the pronunciationdiffers greatly. The titles and author names of classical texts are described in the original pronunciation.4. Consistency with WHO’s Standard Acupuncture Nomenclature.Especially for the terms of acupuncture and moxibustion, IST followed the English translation in StandardAcupuncture Nomenclature, Part 1 and 2 revised edition which was published by the WHO Regional Officefor the Western Pacific in 1991.Use of Western medical termsSince both traditional and modern medicines aim at maintaining health and treating diseases, there must be someoverlap between the two systems of medicine in concept and hence in terminology. On such occasions, the only