The Breakthrough Point of TCM Research: Characteristics and Strengths
In the new century, how should the ancient Chinese medicine develop and advance? How should it position itself in the hall of modern science and medicine?
A recent research project of the Department of Science, Technology, and Education of the State Administration of TCM answers the question. TCM modernization is the developmental process by which, in accord with TCM's own laws and meeting the demands of the age, modern science and technology are fully used to bring about new transformation and elevation of Chinese medicine — from theory to practice — and shape it into a medical theoretical system at modern scientific level.
Chinese medicine has many native strengths: a systematic life-science theory; an individualized diagnostic-therapeutic system; comprehensive regulating therapeutic means and methods; rich theory of yangsheng and health-keeping; the disciplinary character of fusing natural and humanistic science in one body.
In clinical research, TCM's comparative strengths in preventing and treating major diseases will be the entry point. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, malignant tumors, geriatric diseases, viral hepatitis, AIDS, and drug-rehabilitation will be the key tasks for study. The difficult conditions placed on the TCM-prevention-and-treatment priority list include chronic fibrosis of organs, autoimmune diseases, pre-cancerous conditions, drug-dependent diseases, multiple-organ failure, diabetic gangrene, chronic myelitis, and necrosis of the femoral head.
Chinese medicine will also bring out its strength in treating emotional-mental illness, building a TCM emotional-medicine system that unites care, prevention, and health-keeping.
Excerpted from Health News, February 6, 2001