Five Great *Bluffs* in Western-Medicine Testing
Xiaoqi
Western medicine flags itself as scientific, and nothing represents this more than the precise, accurate testing it boasts of. Even some TCM doctors accept the mode "Western tests, Chinese treatment." In the eyes of ordinary people, tests are taken as if life itself, the supreme verdict. Faced with a string of letters and numbers they cannot read, holding a stack of colored test sheets, their reverent and trembling expression is pitiable. But are Western tests really so miraculous? Really so deeply scientific? In my view not so — in them lie five great bluffs.
Bluff One. They turn the moving, integrated, related life-forms of the living into static, isolated, partial test markers. To take these markers as the true state of the human is to over-estimate them. To me these tests are close to the blind men feeling the elephant or the man marking the boat to find his sword — pursuing one side of the thing while forgetting that every side connects. The properties of a part cannot summarize the whole. Applied to the body: do not judge the body's overall function by one part at one moment. So naturally not a true result.
Bluff Two. Mechanical and one-sided understanding of test markers. On the results, Western medicine often refuses to look into the other side of the indicator. Everything has two sides. Take diabetes: high blood-sugar shows not only that blood-sugar is high but also that other parts of the body are not in normal sugar state. The high-blood-sugar patient has not the special power of extracting sugar from breath; where then is the extra sugar coming from? So if one further restricts diet — the indicator turns normal, but places lacking sugar lack even more, and the body's overall health hardly improves.
Bluff Three. Take abnormal indicators in isolation, recklessly call them disease. The body in fighting disease will respond — and tests at such moments often ignore this. They take the abnormal state as the body's own normal. A cold with fever — the stronger the body, the higher the temperature. Why? Fever is the body's lifting and mobilizing of anti-disease function. Reduce the fever at once — it is like surrendering your own gun, tearing down your own Great Wall before the invader. With what then will we resist disease?
Bluff Four. Over-trust indicators, neglect the spirit. By the indicator alone, label the body with disease — never mind the immense psychological pressure caused by the dread of "diabetes", "hypertension", "coronary heart disease", "cirrhosis", "cancer". The human is not an animal; spiritual factors cannot be neglected; will and confidence are root factors in conquering disease. Push the label, the spirit collapses; a small illness turns serious, a serious one kills by fright. Is this not more frightful than the numbers and letters?
Bluff Five. The indicator is omnipotent. As above: an abnormal indicator is not necessarily disease or as severe as it shows. Likewise unnoticed: with normal indicator, the body feels wrong. So the indicator is not omnipotent. Indicators cannot show changes in mood, nor decreased appetite, nor whether sleep is good — still less the sub-health of dizziness and fatigue. Yet often this is precisely when adjustment is due. To trust those indicators alone is less scientific than trusting one's own feeling. The precision and accuracy of the body's own feeling can hardly be replaced by any instrument.
Worse: glaucoma testing requires drinking large quantities of water in a short time; heart-disease testing requires extreme exercise; biopsies are done at the slightest excuse — these have gone past bluff to outright triggering and worsening of disease. Be careful, very careful. One wrong step and regret comes too late.
Now what do you think of such bluffs? Can you still take such tests as untouchable holy science? Always so ready to label others pseudo-science — the pseudo hat may fit your own head best. Superstition is no good; superstition past the limit is worse. Don't let these bluffs daze you. A joke now and then in casual things is fine, but in serious matters, don't gamble your life.
Of course, the bluff is not without merit.
Precisely because it is singular, it can grasp some graspable information in the swift, complex flow of life — not as precise as it claims, but a means of finding reference. Precisely because it is mechanical, it gives focused, decisive quantitative treatment — better than dawdling and missing the moment. Precisely because it qualifies, it serves like a sudden shout — waking the patient to seriousness, lest the case worsen unawares.
In the high mountains of life science, putting on the look of science is not science. Nor are you, perhaps, where you feel — above others' heads. A little slip and you may slide to under their feet — face cannot be saved.
One more thing — too far from science to want to say, but I would feel wrong not to say it. Behind the dignified, solemn halo of scientific tests is a demon — money. They call it generating revenue. With life on the line, only staring at money — is this not too immoral? I won't say more. No one is foolish; think it through. Too much frankness, and on a dark road one fears being struck by a black stick. In all, I have spoken thus only to take some patients out of credulity's error, lest a few numbers and letters block their road to health.