Have you ever wondered what are those strange red dots on Michael Phelps’ back? That’s called cupping, one of the magical streams of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM was developed in a pre-scientific culture before much was understood about biology. Its main philosophical idea was based on Daoism - in which it considers the human body as a whole, by balancing Yin and Yang (the two important gases that support the human body). For thousands of years, it has been proven to be effective, but no existing science theory has been made to justify how it works or even prove the existence of those “meridians” today. Therefore, throughout the past 10 years, substantial researches have been made to standardize TCM to a scientific standard.
Nowadays, we often talk about the standardization of Traditional Chinese Medicine, so I specifically asked some doctors and professors about their opinions on standardization. Most of the answers I got did not support the standardization of TCM, because they felt that this was not realistic. I agree with them as there are thousands of Chinese herbal medicines and even more ingredients inside one herb, and we don’t know which one works for the specific disease. For example, in the case of dandelions, although nearly 100 kinds of ingredients have been discovered from it, we still don’t know exactly which one of them played the role in curing the disease. At the same time, the quintessence of TCM is "individualization" - the amount of the drugs that are administered is adjusted according to each person's physical condition. In contrast, if it is standardized, there would be no difference between Japanese Traditional medicine - where the same composition of herbs is subscribed to every patient with the same disease - and Traditional Chinese Medicine. On the other hand, there is a doctor who especially supports the standardization of Chinese medicine. He uses the treatment of meniscus as an example. He said, "Surgical treatment of meniscus is a method proposed by the Western medicine field more than ten years ago. However, after ten years, they rejected their own method after more scientific research was done. Therefore, TCM also needs scientific research. It is necessary to deny yourself. It is not just copying the treatment according to the methods of ancestors or any historical writing.” I don't agree with him. Nowadays, Chinese medicine practitioners have already changed a lot and are more modernized, so there is no need to use science to “disprove” oneself. At the same time, denying needs to have a certain limit. We can't change the nature of TCM to cater to the development of the times.
Besides standardization, the study of meridians is also a very hot topic. I remember Professor Li Zhengyu once talked about an interesting point of view about meridians. He said, "Recently, you may have heard about the discovery of the interstitium, which is a fluid like a layer under your skin. Many people thought that would be meridians (the acupuncture vein system in TCM), but in fact, these things are just some newly discovered syndesm (the combining form of the denoting connective tissue). Therefore, is ‘Meridian’ really a real thing? Meridians are absolutely real because once we did an experiment, we injected a radioactive injection from the pericardium meridian on our hand. After a while, we detected the presence of radioactive substances near the heart with a detector, so the meridians must exist. But why can't we prove the existence of meridians by science? That's because our technology has not yet reached the level of such advancement to detect Martians, so I believe it will be discovered sometime in the future when technology is advanced enough. However, meridians were invented thousands of years ago, in an era without any technology. So, how did our ancestors compile such a complete Meridian system? “I believe it must have been brought to us by ‘aliens’," professor Li stated in one of the afternoon sessions. I think Professor Li's opinion is really interesting and new. Although I don't believe in the existence of aliens, I still believe his viewpoint is a suitable idea to explain the existence of meridians.
How can TCM transmission become more efficient?
Last but not least, the transmission of Traditional Chinese Medicine to the world. The students of this summer camp come from all over the world, including Malaysia, Czech Republic, Malta, and so on. Most of them are college students who have studied Western medicine or even already worked in the medical field, but they have one thing in common---- the enthusiasm about Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Through one month of being friends with students around the world, I learned about the admittance of TCM in different countries. For example, Germany is very supportive of Chinese medicine and even incorporates Chinese medicine into their social security. However, some countries still don't know much about Chinese medicine. For example, students in Malta only heard about acupuncture of TCM before coming to this camp. So, how should we let Chinese medicine spread to the world? I think having the summer school of TCM is a very efficient way to spread Chinese medicine as summer college is a dispensable choice. Those who chose to come to the summer camp must be interested in TCM. Therefore, they would study and put much effort in to learning and get the “essence” of TCM. Like many students in this summer camp, they are very interested in TCM. So some of them even made appointments in the TCM department of Shuguang Hospital just to experience some Traditional Chinese Medicine in where it originated. Furthermore, some even interviewed some Chinese doctors through their friends to experience the most local TCM practitioners. In addition to the summer colleges, I have heard another provoking method. I once heard a Chinese doctor in Japan said: “We have a Chinese medicine department here, but generally we don't let patients go directly. We have to wait until the patient's disease cannot be treated by Western medicine, then we transfer them to the TCM department." I think his method would really work because when patients experienced on their own, they would definitely be convinced more.
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