Treasure-Hunting in Extraordinary Times — What Guangdong TCM's SARS Work Tells Us
Treasure-Hunting in Extraordinary Times
What Guangdong TCM's SARS Work Tells Us
Mao Jialing
The Chinese have from of old prized the precious as treasure. Even in the 1950s, our great leader, esteeming Chinese medicine highly, said: "Chinese medicine and pharmacy is a great treasure-house, which should be diligently mined and raised up." What countless Chinese lives across the ages earned us — this distinctive medical wisdom — deserves to be called treasure.
In the smokeless battle against SARS, many in the TCM community came forward with their "treasures": formulas, prevention-and-treatment ideas, theoretical analyses. The enthusiasm matters. But most were offered without the precise information that TCM's four examinations would supply; at best they have certain clinical reference value, hard to turn into real-clinical-battle "weapons." On the other side, there is great interest in Guangdong TCM's "precious" experience — what formulas, what herbs. Without slighting anyone's enthusiasm, I would, by analyzing Guangdong TCM's initial SARS results, ask afresh from a new angle: what really is TCM's treasure?
By report, the TCM specialists at Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM, drawing full strength from biàn zhèng lùn zhì, under TCM theoretical guidance, accurately analyzed cause and mechanism, and matched treatment. Facing the core problem of unrelenting high fever, they boldly used Haoqin Qingdan Tang with Sanren Tang — clear heat, transform damp, free the evil out. They also re-discerned the pattern as new pathology emerged. Some patients ran high fever; though dispersing herbs like huoxiang and qinghao were used, the fever would not break. Later it was found that some patients, late in the course, had fatigue, pale-bright complexion, poor appetite — the evil was in the membrane-source (moyuan). The plan turned to penetrating the membrane-source: Shengjiang San with Daoyuan Yin. These two formulas from Wu Youke's late-Ming Wenyi Lun — only a few herbs — have the power to crush the evil and drive it from the membrane-source. Used in clinic, the effect was striking. So, by targeted biàn zhèng lùn zhì, they shortened fever-resolution and length of stay, won a proud victory in the fight against SARS, recognition from WHO specialists, and praise from General Secretary Hu Jintao.
If one were to sum up Guangdong TCM's experience, one could write a thousand lines. But in my view there is only one thing, only four words — words people speak by rote but fewer and fewer use well: biàn zhèng lùn zhì. Not secret formula, not specific drug. That is the true treasure of TCM's SARS work.
TCM differs from Western medicine in this: it carries a distinct theoretical system, drawn from millennia of clinical practice, and a matching diagnostic-therapeutic craft — especially its mastery of natural-medicinal compounds, refined to near-spiritual heights. Where there is symptom, one can discern the pattern, set the treatment — without needing first to see clearly under the microscope or to find a one-two-three from the lab before issuing the order. That is the marvel of TCM.
Therefore, in this age when modern science cannot yet smoothly join the academic problems of Chinese and Western medicine, there is no need to entangle ourselves endlessly in the dispute of which is better. What modern science cannot yet clearly know must not be cast wholesale into the cold palace of backward and unscientific. That is — don't over-meddle in the process, look more to results. A hero is not asked his origin; real effect is the hard truth. The standard for judging effect must, of course, be one and the same for Chinese and Western medicine.
In recent decades, TCM has enjoyed its most splendid period of growth. Yet at the same time — alongside the vigorous "infrastructure" of TCM organizations, hospitals, and modern higher education — concepts and management systems that seem modern, advanced, but are not objective, scientific, and fair toward TCM, have gradually eroded the "ecology" in which TCM lives. The serious tendency to westernize has not produced large numbers of senior TCM practitioners who truly master TCM theory and can deftly do biàn zhèng lùn zhì; meanwhile, many in the TCM world have long lost the biàn zhèng lùn zhì consciousness. Some have never even formed it.
Our Constitution long ago provides: "Develop modern medicine and our country's traditional medicine" — placing TCM and Western medicine on equal footing. Yet in many minds TCM keeps a subordinate place. Ten-plus years back, many senior TCM doctors hoped a dedicated TCM-administration would change the passive picture; reality has shown it is not so simple. The road of TCM's development is long. In the recent period, if Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM had not directly received SARS patients, would TCM have had so much chance to take part in SARS treatment? Without the chance, how could TCM's efficacy be proved? If TCM has not even taken part, how can one rashly say TCM can only be "auxiliary"? Indeed, SARS work is a new challenge to both Chinese and Western medicine; neither can claim superiority. Only hand-in-hand work brings greater hope for patient health.
For TCM to grow, for clinical results to rise, simply realizing the importance of the biàn zhèng lùn zhì "treasure" is far from enough — we need a large pool of senior TCM practitioners able to "play" the treasure, and not the "new compound talent" of recent decades, mass-produced, TCM not refined, Western not through, supposed to "know both."
TCM's initial results against SARS sound an alarm bell on TCM education, research, clinical care, and management long blindly westernized. Since TCM is a great treasure-house, follow its laws of development; build for it a healthy ecology and a management-and-evaluation system distinct from other medicine. We must work to find back the treasures already lost, and to create new ones. All of this depends on training, as quickly as possible, those who play the treasure in TCM's own thinking — the true treasure within the treasure.
Originally in China TCM News, 19 May 2003
SARS Special Issue, Academic Section, Page 7