Traditional Chinese medicine.

Abstract

Foreign to many in the Western world, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is perhaps one of the most ancient healing arts known to humans.4, 5 Since the 1960s and 1970s, the practice of TCM has grown at a spectacular pace. During the early periods of expansion, skilled translators and quality source material pertaining to TCM were not readily available. As a result, there was a genuine misunderstanding of many classic texts in TCM. According to the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), TCM originated more than 3000 years ago. Its most popular modality, acupuncture, is perhaps the oldest and most commonly used medical procedure in the world. A wide variation in the practice of this and other Chinese medical modalities calls into question the idea that there are universally agreed-on criteria for choosing procedures based on arrived diagnoses. In the current culture that calls for certainty and reductionist thought, it is believed that the nearest thing to what is considered an objective body of theoretic and clinical knowledge is found deep within the Chinese classic tradition. The most recognized classic encyclopedic compilation, the Huang Di Nei Jing or The Yellow Emperor’s Classics of Internal Medicine was published in the third century BC. This great work, which has been used by practitioners to develop their skill over the last 2 millennia, illustrates and confirms the age of this traditional practice of medicine. Many who have attempted to use this classic medical text have found the Chinese language fraught with difficulty. To this end, translation has been met