Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) stresses yin and yang. Sizhen and bagang are the bases of TCM, and they guide diagnoses and treatment.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can be traced back to ancient times. Over several thousands of years, Chinese people have accumulated a wealth of experience in treating illnesses, and thus creating an integrated system of theories; such as the theories of yin and yang, or positive and negative forces; witring, or the five elements of water, fire, metal, wood and earth; and of viscera, or the treatment based on symptoms and signs, pharmacology, acupuncture and moxibustion. TCM has proven itself as a science over thousands of years of clinical practice.

Sizhen--TCM Diagnosis

pulse taking

Diagnosis in TCM involves two parts: The method of diagnosis and the determination of treatment based on symptoms and signs. The method of diagnosis is composed of sizhen—inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation. Each has its own clinical function.

example: tongue diagnosis

Inspection involves observing the patient's expressions, complexion, physique, posture, tongue and the color of secretion and excrement to determine the conditions of internal organs. A patient’s expressions and tongue are most important in this process. Auscultation and olfaction involve listening to a patient’s sounds—including using a stethoscope to hear the patient’s heart—and noticing the smells coming from the patient. Changes in a patient’s sounds—talking, breathing and/or coughing—and his/her odor can help a doctor detect various illnesses, such as chills, fevers, hypofunction or hyperfunction. Inquiry involves asking the patient and/or his/her companions about the onset, cause and course of the illness, the chief complaints (especially pain), the patient’s past history, his/her living habits and other relevant conditions. Palpation involves checking the patient’s pulse.

Treatment Is Based on Symptoms And Signs

Bagang (the eight principle) are yin and yang, exterior and interior, cold and heat, deficiency and excess. They are analyzed and summed up from data obtained during the sizhen process to reveal the nature and cause of the disease. Despite the disease’s complexity, it can basically he summed up as bagang. Diseases may be classed as yin syndromes or yang syndromes, based on their general classifications. Of bagang, yang includes the patient’s external body, heat and excess; yin, the internal organs, cold and deficiency. Thus, yin and yang syndromes are the general principles of bagang.

Yin and yang are parts of a view on the universe; a view that everything in the universe is an entity of yin and yang. For thousands of years, combined with TCM practices, the theory has become one of TCM’s guiding ideologies. As these two forces dominate the universe, they too control physical organisms. Health depends on their existence—in proper proportions.

Wuxing (5 elements) Goes Together With Yin and Yang

Wuxing—a school of ancient Chinese philosophy—is a theory that goes together with yin and yang. When applied to TCM, wuxing categorizes various viscera of the human body. For example, the liver is linked to wood; the heart, fire; the spleen, earth; the lungs, metal; and the kidneys, water. These connections are made to explain the physiological and pathological changes of the viscera—the internal organs.

Bagang does not mean the eight symptoms of diseases are unrelated. Actually, they are inseparable. For example, a cold can coexist with heat syndromes, or a fever with cold symptoms.

They are also transformable; the patient may appear to have cold symptoms, but he/she has heat symptoms. In order to make a correct diagnosis, the doctor must accurately understand bagang, and he/she must know all the symptoms.