Concept of Holistic Medicine

The concept of holistic medicine, in which the person is seen as a whole rather than as a biological machine afflicted by a series of different symptoms, although relatively new in the West, has been familiar for a long time to the Chinese.

In contrast, the idea of treating a patient's headaches in one medical department, their period pains in another, and their insomnia in a third, would seem to them extraordinary since there must be a common root.

A holistic viewpoint has always formed the basis of Chinese traditional diagnosis: in this, for example, asthma is just a disease label identifying a general theme - and people with asthma "will all show different variations on that theme.

In one patient an attack may be precipitated by excitement or stress; in another by exertion; in a third attacks may always occur at night.

An acupuncturist would look at each patient's background constitution, and would find perhaps that one tends to sweat heavily, while another has very dry skin, and a third also suffers from eczema.

Questions on their general health would also be asked -family history, digestion, diet, bowels, etc. to set the 'asthma' in context of that particular patient.