Abstract: *On the Revival of Chinese Medicine*
Author: Li Zhizhong
To date, the sciences born of human rational thought can broadly be sorted into two great kinds: systems-science and reductionist science, or, the science of the metaphysical and the science of the physical. Chinese medicine and Western medicine flow in two separate streams, each belonging to its own class. The two share the same aim of preventing and treating disease, but because the human being as an integrated whole is complex, each takes some particular part of that whole as its object, viewed from a different angle and at a different level. Their methods of research therefore differ, and the concepts and categories they form each become their own system. Over the past hundred years, under the influence of "modern scientism," a current of thought that uses the methods of reductionist science to verify, interpret, and reshape Chinese medicine has constantly hindered Chinese medicine's self-completion and development by its own inner scientific laws.
This book begins from a comparative study of Eastern and Western cultures and sciences, takes as its core a comparative study of the foundational theories of the two medical systems, and applies wide-ranging and original rational thought to the century-long bewilderment shared by the Chinese-medicine field. It argues for modern definitions of Chinese medicine's core concepts; discusses the place and role of Chinese medicine in contemporary human medicine; analyzes the cultural and historical causes of the hundred-year bewilderment; explores the feasibility and sustainability of Chinese medicine's revival; and on a number of academic topics, sets out the author's penetrating views.
The book is rich in evidence, rigorous in logic, plain in language, and clear in standpoint. It has been praised by the famous contemporary Chinese-medicine specialist Professor Deng Tietao as "a good book written with one's heart and blood." Its publication is a not-to-be-missed study material for students beginning in Chinese medicine, for professional scholars engaged in theoretical and clinical research, for administrators in clinical care, teaching, and research, and for science-studies and soft-science experts working on the future development of Chinese medicine — of important research and reference value.