Reflections Drawn from Mao Zedong's Encounters with Chinese Medicine
Chengdu Longtan Hospital · Deng Wanfa
Mao Zedong is one of the great figures of modern Chinese history. His encounters with TCM and his reactions to it could directly affect TCM's survival and growth; one could even say a single sentence of his could decide TCM's life or death. So by reflecting on Mao Zedong Meets Chinese Medicine one can explore TCM's recent history. Two examples below:
"In the Yan'an years, Comrade Mao Zedong's life was very hard; he often fell ill. Once Mao caught rheumatic arthritis; medical conditions were poor — short of doctor, short of medicine. The arthritis often pained him so that work and rest were affected. The non-Party figure Mr. Li Dingming, on hearing of this, rushed to Yangjialing to see Mao. Li Dingming had some study of TCM. After taking Mao's pulse he said: 'Four doses of Chinese medicine will be much better.' At the time the Western-medicine doctors around Mao opposed his taking it — TCM was looked down upon as backward, unscientific. But Mao had as early as the Jinggangshan period proposed integration of Chinese and Western medicine. He insisted on taking the four doses Li had prescribed. After the doses, the arm pain was gone; movement restored. Mao smiled with pleasure."
"Once Mao was ill again. A senior TCM physician from Shandong, Liu Huimin, treated him. After one visit, in idle talk, Mao asked Liu what TCM means by 'fire.' Liu explained, in TCM theory, what 'fire' meant. Mao still could not catch the abstract TCM theory. He said to Liu: 'You have spoken at length and I have not caught a word. What can be done?' Liu smiled: 'Chairman, did you not say that Western-medicine doctors should learn Chinese medicine? If a Western doctor explains it, you will understand.' Mao gladly said: 'True, Western medicine must learn Chinese medicine.' Mao held that Chinese medicine is a great treasure-house, to be diligently mined and lifted. Western medicine, after learning Chinese medicine, could erase the boundary between Chinese and Western medicine, becoming a unified new medicine — a greater contribution to all humankind."
Reflection on the first:
Through the Opium War, China saw that Chinese culture could not make foreign guns and foreign cannon — the root cause of being backward and beaten. The May Fourth Movement's break-with-the-old, build-the-new made the reception of Western culture-science the new current of Chinese revolution. TCM, as the product of Chinese culture, was put among the old to be broken. So the Communist Party did not equip Mao with TCM and TCM medicines — that is the reason. This shows that Chinese medicine is backward and unscientific had become the recognition of the ruling proletarian party. Only because Mao lived in China — knowing deeply how the people needed TCM — did he, as early as the Jinggangshan period, propose the integration of Chinese and Western medicine. Under that particular historical background, this proposal can be called a sliver of hope left for TCM's survival. At the same time it created the historical and political conditions for the Westernization of TCM after Liberation.
Reflection on the second:
1. Mao Zedong was a revolutionary; he did not know Chinese medicine. The health-care line he set did not in fact fit TCM's interests for survival and development — but it did fit the political moment.
2. In a time when what is learned and used is Western culture-science, TCM workers should also know some Western culture-science. To explain a disease to a patient in both cultural sciences is to complete the TCM-patient communication. Mao, as a patient, said to Liu: "You have spoken at length and I have not caught a word." If every TCM explained TCM theory the way Liu Huimin did, the TCM and modern-culture-trained patient would lose all communication — a gap of recognition. This does not serve TCM's survival and growth.
3. The present Party and government still wish that Western medicine, after learning Chinese medicine, may erase the boundary and become a unified new medicine; hence they put forward the strategic aim of TCM modernization. This shows: the theory that Chinese medicine is itself another science has not yet been recognized — at least not yet by the upper figures. They still try to verify and remake TCM by Western culture, science, and technology. They do not see that two medicines root in two sciences — that to erase the boundary between Chinese and Western medicine and become a unified new medicine is in the root not possible. Two medicines, two sciences: they can only use each other, push each other on, complement each other; they cannot replace each other, cannot merge into one.
So: establish two-medicine, two-science concepts; lay out the theoretical system of Chinese science; raise high the strengths of Chinese culture; constrain the weaknesses of Western culture-science — this is the new tide of the new age, the great mission history has handed us through its circling course.