Chinesische Medizin.

by Paul U. Unschuld

Though not a history book, this is the work of an historian and is written from an historian's point of view, explaining events against the background of the life of the times in China. It introduces each element of Chinese medical knowledge, each phase of its development in the light of the intelectual, social, political, and economic soil from which it sprang, and shows how the concepts of Chinese medicine were able to gain acceptance and how, despite its gradual evolution, its basic features remained stable for 2000 years. Aside from the wealth of information it contains about the nature and development of Chinese medicine, the author's view of the reception of Chinese medicine in the West is a major contribution to our understanding of alternative healthcare.

Paperback

Published April 1, 1997

About the author

Paul Ulrich Unschuld

Reviews

[littlemiao · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brief, highly readable overview of Chinese medicine by one of the preeminent historians of Chinese medicine. The selected bibliography makes it a good starting point for further reading. In the first part of the book, the author places the development of five-phase and yin-yang theory in historical context, which is a useful contrast to other texts that present Chinese medical theory as a seamless, systematic edifice that has withstood the test of time. On the contrary, it is a constantly changing, heterogenous pool of sometimes-contradictory ideas that doctors drew from creatively in their clinical practice and writing. Unschuld's evaluation of the current state of Chinese medicine is somewhat pessimistic. He likens it it a tree that, deprived of nourishment, can no longer grow but can only be harvested for wood. The last chapter of the book, titled "Long March to the West," describes Western reception of Chinese medicine. In discussing the growing popularity of acupuncture in Western industrialized countries (he mentions the United States but he is obviously more familiar with Europe), he suggests that alienation from science, fear of technology, distrust of conventional medicine, and "lack of reference to a whole" (i.e., religion), have made people receptive to a Chinese medicine repackaged as holistic and natural, two characteristics not necessarily inherent to Chinese medicine. His psychosocial explanation seems too flat and neat to hold up for long, just given the diverse demographics attracted to acupuncture in the United States. In any case, read this book for a quick, often-insightful historical overview of Chinese medicine and not for its sociological analysis. For someone interested in the history of Chinese medicine, I would recommend any of Unschuld's other works over this one.