“Three parts medicine, seven parts nurturing health. Skill in treating is not as good as skill in nurturing health.”
Chinese saying
Lifestyle is the buzzword in Western medicine. From Dr Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing Radio 4 series on how to improve your health to Tim Spector’s revolutionary Zoe app, an individualised approach to nutrition.
The idea that what you eat, how much you move and how you adapt to the seasons and the environment may affect your health were discussed in China over 2000 years ago in the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine).
This seminal text on Chinese Medicine is writtten as a conversation between the Yellow Emperor and his physician and courtesan. Huangdi inquires about the nature of health, disease, and treatment.
In this book are set correspondences between phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water) and organs, viscera, feelings, body fluids, flavours, foods, colours, and so on. We can also find the description of blood (Xue) and functional energy (Qi) circulation and the pathways of main, collateral and extraordinary vessels. The origins of disease are also reported on the Huangdi Neijing. As regards the psychological point of view, special attention is dedicated to dreams and their possible causes and to the description of various kind of mental illness. The unknown authors underline the five defects and the four mistakes of the physician, pointing out the importance to avoid them. Finally, special focus is on to the principles of preventive medicine.
In a recent article by Song Xang Ke, who introduced acupuncture to three London hospitals for pain management and maternity care explains how concepts of health, illness and treatment in the Huangdi Neijing are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago. “Within the Chinese Health System, TCM (Tradtional Chinese Medicine) provides a balancing and integrating approach to health and the prevention of disease. The book provides the story of human existence, of our relationship to the environment and how ‘balance’ provides us with health and wellbeing in our daily lives. The role of the TCM practitioner is to look for wellness as a way of preventing disease”.
Tips and talks
- 7 essential strategies on how to eat well in 2024 – Zoe
- Just One Thing – Drink Green Tea – Dr Micheal Mosley explains how to boost your brain, mood and heart
- The principles of health, illness and treatment – Song Xuan Ke’s key concepts from “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine”