Crofton Health Clinic
88 Crofton Lane, Orpington, Kent, BR5 1HD
88 Crofton Lane, Orpington, Kent, BR5 1HD
Your health is your future...
One of the magnificent structures of the world is the Great Wall of China. It is the only man made object that can be viewed from space, a remarkable feat of engineering. To think that Chinese Medicine is older than the Great Wall is long, if one mile is equivalent to one year, is difficult to imagine. Considering it stretches from one side of China to the other, this is remarkably long and makes Chinese medicine remarkably old.
The "Ma Wang Tui" tomb in Hunan dates to the end of the third century BC; it was discovered in the early 1970's, (who knows what lies waiting to be discovered at this present time and how far back it will date). Acupuncture has thought to be discovered by Huang Di "The Yellow Emperor" around 2700 BC. The "Huang di nei jing", the classic of internal medicine was written by Huang Di, and was significantly improved between this time and the second century AD, and gave Chinese medicine a solid foundation and firm roots. The "Shang han lun" and "Jin gui yao lue" are two halves of the same book, written by Zhang Zhong-Jing, at the latter end of the Han dynasty, or third century AD. Zhang Zhong-Jing did much for the development of Chinese medicine, and all of us who practice today owe much to him, in fact he was so developed for his time many of his prescriptions are still in use today.
The list goes on and the great pool of knowledge expands with age, and nothing is made redundant, just for the sake of advancement. Many generations have devoted their lives to research to further the advancement of this unique medical system.
The great thing about the medicine is that nothing is made redundant just to make way for new research. This provides an incredibly large pool of information, which for the student and the practitioner it is quite daunting. Even with all the archives of information Chinese Medicine still continues to develop to this day. More research is being carried out as you are reading this page. The type of ongoing research that is currently active is the type credible to the west, where cells are monitored for activity etc. etc., which is the same research as is given to the pharmaceutical drugs we have at our local chemist. This means that Chinese medicine is as modern today as it was 3000 years ago, and is not just an exhibit to be displayed in the museum.
The research that was made thousands of years ago was probably more reliable than research of today. This applies to acupuncture and herbal medicine, but I will discuss herbal medicine in this instance. Two thousand years ago the only way of proving a particular medicine's efficacy was to actually "take" the substance and record the results. This is what thousands of Chinese did, some devoting their entire lives to testing herbs and thus poisoning themselves for the sake of the advancement and safety of the medicine. Much gratitude is expressed to these brave and pioneering subjects for their devotion to this subject. This is a very reliable and credible form of research. Well we really are different to mice, although testing in the west is eventually performed on humans, usually in a controlled trial with a placebo. The other factor regarding animal testing is that due to the differences between man and beast, a substance may kill an animal but be very useful to a human, and thus if the animal suffers in the test, the substance is disregarded. So I feel the Chinese deserve a lot of respect for their commitment to those early, and most reliable, days of research. So the next time you hear someone say there is nothing in it, you could re-educate, him or her, as to the depth and most reliable research they own. On the other hand any information gleaned through the testing of an animal, which could save human life, has to be seen worthwhile.