Tag Archives: chinese medicine

The Difference between Chinese and Modern Western Medicine

Chinese and modern Western medicine are very different in terms of how disease and ill-health are conceived and treated, and in terms of their relative advantages and disadvantages. I will attempt to describe these differences below, but I should point out that what follows is just my own understanding, and others may have other opinions.

Western medicine attempts to identify biological abnormalities in the body’s tissues. It gives a short name to each disease, according to the distinct abnormalities that characterise each one. And it seeks to treat disease by chemically manipulating the body in very specific ways to cure the disease or failing that to mitigate its impact or reduce its symptoms. If the disease is severe and of a structural nature, surgery is used to remove the offending tissue or replace it. This is of course a generalisation, and I do not want to be accused of promoting a stereotype. I know there are many amazing methods that are currently used or are in development which go beyond this characterisation, but still, nobody can deny that the lion’s share of medicine as practised today is pharmaceuticals or surgery. A big problem with modern Western medicine is the side-effects, and a big advantage is its success in treating life-threatening disease and trauma.

Chinese medicine looks at illness and treats it in a completely different way. Illness is described in terms of groups of symptoms which Chinese doctors have noticed over many centuries of observation to commonly occur together. These are called patterns. The patterns are related energy flow in the body and indeed also in relation to that in the outer environment. There are different kinds, qualities and levels of energy in the body, that all move in their own particular ways. Ultimately everything boils down to the interaction of Yin and Yang, the two opposing yet inseparable and complementary energetic tendencies that are the essence of everything in existence. Treatment – by herbs, diet, acupuncture, cupping, moxibustion and massage – aims to restore balance in the energy flow within the body and harmonise it with that in the outside environment. Chinese medicine is gentler than Western medicine, producing fewer side-effects, and aims to eliminate the underlying reasons for the illness so far as possible. It is less applicable than Western medicine when disease is very serious and in emergency situations.

[Image generated by AI.]

The “EJiao” Problem

Chinese herbal medicine uses a very large number of remedies, mostly plant material but also including minerals and some animal products. All of these are conventionally, if somewhat illogically, termed “herbs” in Chinese medicine. Some of the animal medicines are problematic for animal welfare, environmental, biodiversity or socio-economic reasons.

One such is EJiao – Donkey gelatin – derived from donkey hides. It is an important nutritive remedy used to “tonify the blood”. But the demand for donkey hides for EJiao production in China is so great that donkeys are being exported en masse from Africa, where they are traditionally used as working animals. As a result, apart from concerns about their welfare, they are becoming economically inaccessible to local people (The Conversation, 6th February 2023).

I do not use EJiao or any other problematic animal products in my practice of Chinese herbal medicine. Cow or pig gelatin can be used instead, and indeed cowhide gelatin was usually used until the 11th century, when donkeys became more widely available. Moreover, there are plant medicines which may be utilised for the same purpose, perhaps slightly less effectively but much more ethically. And happily, Chinese researchers are developing synthetic gelatin alternatives which have shown therapeutic promise.

This is not an African donkey but a little fellow I made friends with on the island of Euboea in Greece in 2024.