Abstract
The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is explained in the language of engineering cybernetics (EC), an engineering science with the tradition of rigor and long history of practice. The inherent connection is articulated between EC, as a science of interrelations, and the Chinese conception of Wuxing. The combined cybernetic model of Wuxing seems to have significant explaining power for the TCM and could potentially facilitate better communications of the insights of the TCM to the West. In disturbance rejection, an engineering concept, a great metaphor, is found to show how the TCM is practiced, using the liver cancer pathogenesis and treatment as a case study. The results from a series of experimental studies seem to lend support to the cybernetic model of Wuxing and the principles of disturbance rejection.
Highlights
Holistic, self-contained, and independent developed over millenniums, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the embodiment of a cosmic view, rooted in Yin-Yang and Wuxing, in the inner working of human bodies
The conclusion was that curcumin can protect the hepatic precancerous lesions in the mice attacked by diethylnitrosamine, and combination use of curcumin and Rhizoma dioscoreae can be more effective [16, 25]
In this paper we attempt to establish a framework for the study of the TCM where a new language of engineering cybernetics is introduced to delineate, with clarity, the principles and practice of the TCM
Summary
Self-contained, and independent developed over millenniums, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the embodiment of a cosmic view, rooted in Yin-Yang and Wuxing, in the inner working of human bodies. Perhaps to the Western scholars, Wuxing gives a holistic view of the complex system of human body, in how the vital systems interact with each other By understanding such interrelationship, described in the language of EC, the ADRC framework is borrowed to explain how the disturbance rejection is accomplished in the TCM. The congenial connection between the system concepts and tools of cybernetics and the Ying-Yang and Wuxing in the TCM gives us hope to quantify and standardize the teachings of the TCM on a rigorous scientific foundation To this end, the paper is organized as follows: the disturbance rejection paradigm in engineering and its connection to the TCM are explored in Section 2; the cybernetic model of Wuxing and disturbance rejection in the context of TCM are discussed, followed by a case study, using the liver cancer treatment as an example.
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