Looking into the Chinese 'Mirror'
- By Sabine Weber
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China Today, September 21, 2017
Distinctions in Medicine and Healing
"In Europe, as well as in China, the perception of illness and health experienced a paradigm shift during the period between around 400 years prior to and 200 years after Christ," Labisch explained. "At that time, a completely new world view emerged in the perception and interpretation of human health and sickness, not only from the perspective of human nature, but also considering personal order, the order of society, and global order as a whole."
In the centuries before that time, illness and physical suffering were widely regarded as consequences of upset ghosts, demons, or ancestors. However, in the texts originating from the time period when the change of people's mindset took place, illness was no longer considered a consequence of supernatural entities, but rather as something that could be explained as natural phenomena, and thus could be integrated into the framework of men's contemporary view of nature.
From this point on, the human body was seen analogous to the perception of nature. On the other hand, this perception of nature also corresponds to the perception of society and the organization of the community, i.e. an organic model.
Terms, formerly used to describe natural phenomena, were now also applied to the human body. Changes and symptoms were now perceived as causal, natural influences, closely connected to each other.
This new perception of health also revealed a new definition of human behavior towards society and nature. In the European tradition, this trend began as early as Hippocrates, who considered disharmony within the human body as a consequence of the interactions of the four bodily fluids and their specific qualities, which in his view also corresponded with the four basic elements and qualities.
Meanwhile, in ancient China, correlations were discovered between the function of organs, the functional systems of the body, and the five phases.
Although both approaches differ vastly in their underlying ideas and concepts of illness, they associate organs and functions of the human body with the organic perception of nature and its changes. This meant that the human body was liberated from the context of demonology, animism, and familial-cultic relationships and became embedded into a naturalistic-scientific worldview.
In contrast to China, however, European scientific tradition experienced a break in the 16th and 17th centuries, which upended the scientific worldview of the past.
"Individuals like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton began to isolate single observations, reproduced them in experimental form, quantified them through analysis and abstracted theories as a result. These theories then in consequence allowed technical applications," Labisch explained.
"This new method served to prove universally valid claims of truth of knowledge in an experimental way, to explain it in a mathematical way comprehensible for all and to make it technically available for everyone. Thereby, it caused an unparalleled shift in European sciences, which didn't take place in the same way in China."
Despite the initially slow and then, from the mid-19th century onwards, rapid ongoing development of modern medicine, the European medical knowledge of ancient times and the middle ages is not completely forgotten but survived inside the realm of traditional folk medicine.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)