Chinese medicine has the ability to prevent disease
2 min readAccording to the Neijing, the ability to prevent disease is the sign of the superior physician. This is the source of the famous saying,”The superior physician treats disease before it occurs.”
Treating disease only after its onset is analogous to instituting government only after society has descended into chaos, or digging a well only after becoming thirsty. Surely by then it is too late. Treating disease before itoccurs is a defining principle of traditional Chinese medicine. It encompasses not only the modern concept of treatment, but more importantly, the prevention of disease and promotion of health.
Zhang Zhongjing(150-219 AD),a sage physician of the Han Dynasty, put great emphasis on preventive treatment. It is recorded that Zhang Zhongjing once met a high ranking official named Wang Zhongx-uan(177-217AD). Zhang informed him that he had condition that would cause his eyebrows to fall out when he turned forty and that he would die six months after that. However, this could be prevented by taking a medicine known as “wushi tang (five stone decoction).”Skeptical, Wang did not take the medicine, only to lose his eyebrows and die just when Zhang had predicted. This is an example of the use of the diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine to identify an existing condition, predict the course of its development, and on that basis determine preventive treatment. Zhang Zhongjing is also known for applying the laws of movement among the zangfu organs to prevent the progression of disease.
This type of preventive medicine stresses that in the event that a disease has already man ifested, it should be diagnosed and treated as soon as possible in order to prevent its further development and transformation.
Today, the clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine continues to be guided by the principles of preventive treatment, including treating disease before it occurs and preventing the progression ofexisting disease.
