My partner tends a small garden on the balcony overlooking Independence Garden. Day by day, she checks the condition of the potted plants and lovingly cares for the wellbeing of the plants. She waters them to quench their thirst. When the basil leaves turn yellow and lose their shine, she moves the plant away from the sun's rays. When the parsley grows too slowly, she makes sure to move it to a more illuminated spot. When the mint's soil is muddy and doesn't dry properly, she ensures that the water at the bottom of the pot drains properly.
Chinese medicine is similar to my partner's work in the garden.
People who haven't experienced Chinese treatment usually ask me, "Does it really work? Isn't it all psychological?"
The answer is that Chinese treatment works on the human body exactly as my partner's treatment works on plants. Just as she understands that the basil leaves are drying because the entire pot suffers from dehydration, so Chinese medicine sees the various "diseases" that afflict us as different expressions of a general imbalance in our body. This is a holistic perception that maintains that one can never ignore the general condition of the organism, whether that organism is a human or a plant. Just as the drying of the tree's foliage stems from the general dryness of the tree, so one cannot separate the disease from the patient's general condition—physical and mental. To this the biblical verse refers: "For man is like a tree of the field."
Some of you are probably saying: "What's new about this? We've long known that a person healthy in mind, who is careful to eat right and exercise, will be less exposed to diseases."
The point is that from the holistic principle, Chinese medicine understands disease and treats the patient in a fundamentally different way from Western medicine.
Let us examine a common complaint: headache. When a Chinese doctor examines a patient suffering from headaches, he does not relate only to the complaint itself, that is, to the headache, but tries to understand the overall picture. He seeks to know the patient thoroughly, and in more figurative language, he seeks to know what is the "internal climate" of the patient in which the headache developed. Just as a plant can be characterized by a certain climate, so too can the "internal climate" of the human body be characterized.
Chinese medicine examines whether the person tends toward a climate of heat, cold, dryness or dampness, whether blood circulation in the body is normal, whether he is nourished by good materials just as a plant is nourished by quality fertilizer.
In other words, Chinese medicine focuses more on the condition of the patient and less on the disease. In Chinese eyes, disease is a symptomatic expression of the patient's general condition.
Therefore, when the Chinese doctor formulates a diagnosis for a disease, he will ask questions that are not only related to the complaint, but will also present general questions in order to get a general picture of that internal climate.
Let us return to the patient suffering from headaches. When the Chinese doctor interviews him, he asks him, of course, about the headache. However, along with this, he tries to understand what is the internal climate in which the headache "grew." If the practitioner suspects that the pain stems from a climate where the body systems are active and too restless like boiling lava in a volcano—and in Chinese terms called a "hot climate"—he will ask the patient questions to determine if there are additional signs indicating such a climate: Is the patient often thirsty? What is the color of the urine, and which season does he prefer? A person who is thirsty most of the time, whose urine color is dark and who feels more comfortable in winter, suffers from an internal hot climate. The doctor will also check the color of the tongue and the speed of the pulse. A red tongue and fast pulse also indicate a hot climate. From this diagnosis, the treatment method is also derived. The doctor will try to cool the patient's internal climate with the help of medicinal plants, Chinese acupuncture, and dietary change.
On the other hand, if the doctor suspects that the headache stems from excess fluids in the human body, he will question the patient about the texture of his bowel movements, examine the thickness of the coating on the tongue, and feel the pulse to determine its quality. Stools that are too soft, thick coating of the tongue, and a spongy feeling when palpating the pulse indicate excess fluids. This is a completely different climate from the climate of heat and therefore requires different treatment. In such a case, excess fluids must be removed in order to get rid of the headache.
We have therefore seen an example of two different people, coming to the doctor with the same symptom—headache, but having different climates. Therefore, each of the patients must be treated with a different treatment method. A patient suffering from a "hot climate" will need cooling, while a patient suffering from a fluid-saturated climate will need drying, or drainage of excess fluids with the help of diuretics. Sounds like gardening work, doesn't it?
Now you can also understand why a headache pill doesn't actually solve the root problem. It only addresses the symptom. If the headache developed due to an internal climate of heat, the pill will relieve the pain in the short term, but the heat conditions in the body will not change. Over time, the heat will give its signs in other ways: constipation problems, dry mouth, digestive problems, or skin disease. Therefore, what is needed in this situation is not just pain relief, that is, symptomatic and local treatment, but change and rebalancing of the internal climate, so that the patient will receive true root treatment. The holistic treatment, which looks at the patient as a whole and tries to help him from a broad and deep view of his condition, is unique to Chinese medicine. This is its specialty.