Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine is an extensive, interdisciplinary guide to the nature of traditional medicine and healing in the Chinese cultural region, and its plural epistemologies. Established experts and the next generation of scholars interpret the ways in which Chinese medicine has been understood and portrayed from the beginning of the empire (third century BCE) to the globalisation of Chinese products and practices in the present day, taking in subjects from ancient medical writings to therapeutic movement, to talismans for healing and traditional medicines that have inspired global solutions to contemporary epidemics. The volume is divided into seven parts: Longue Durée and Formation of Institutions and Traditions Sickness and Healing Food and Sex Spiritual and Orthodox Religious Practices The World of Sinographic Medicine Wider Diasporas Negotiating Modernity This handbook therefore introduces the broad range of ideas and techniques that comprise pre-modern medicine in China, and the historiographical and ethnographic approaches that have illuminated them. It will prove a useful resource to students and scholars of Chinese studies, and the history of medicine and anthropology. It will also be of interest to practitioners, patients and specialists wishing to refresh their knowledge with the latest developments in the field. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licens

Value creation through modernizing Chinese medicine

Thesis (S.M.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-114).My first hypothesis in this thesis is that there is significant value vested in traditional Chinese medicine that can be captured by converting them into ethical drugs through scientific analysis, screening and validation. Further, holistic treatment is a key difference between traditional Chinese medicine and western-type chemical drugs, which makes Chinese medicine a very valuable category of knowledge. Using mixed formula is a primary method of treatment in Chinese medicine. It is the application of distinctive medical philosophies of Chinese herbal medicines in practices, reflecting the uniqueness and advantages of Chinese medicine. For example, there are 96,592 mixed formula recorded by "Dictionary of Chinese Medicine Mixed Formula" published in 1997. My second hypothesis in this thesis is that value can be created and captured, under the globalization context, from mixed herbal formulas for the mainstream world market with the aid of fingerprint technologies. To enter western markets as officially approved drugs through critical pathways, both scientific and regulatory, Chinese herb drugs must demonstrate sound evidence for safety and efficacy. I address in this thesis one of the central concerns of the pharmaceutical companies and FDA, that is, how quality control and material consistency is assured and how toxicity and drug kinetics of Chinese herbal medicines, either in its raw form, its purified form, its composite extract form or its mixed formula form, may be measured with reasonable scientific certainty and what would be the likely trajectory of further research.(cont.) My thesis research involves the following aspects: firstly, I characterize, by and through historical review and analysis, the formation of unique Chinese holistic medical philosophy to apply herbal medicines, particularly mixed herbal formulas, to systematically modulate the human body to prevent illnesses, to combat health problems and to restore balanced health; secondly, I performed a comparative study on the regulatory systems between Chinese SFDA and US FDA to provide insights on the trend of harmonic convergence of laws and regulations and challenges going forward, including collection and extrapolation of relevant statistical data; thirdly, I researched emerging fingerprint technologies to address the central issues of standardization, quality control, material consistency, safety and efficacy measurements of Chinese herbal medicines; fourthly, I performed data collection on major Chinese sources of published literatures and patent applications/grants for public and private medicinal knowledge formation, which may be viewed as a surrogate indicator for embedded economic value in the system, to compare trend and gaps between China and developed countries; and lastly, I presented three case studies of development of an-diabetic drugs from herbal sources, to illustrate how value may be created and captured through using modern technologies to tap into the accumulative knowledge base in herbal medicine. The thesis concludes that there are significant values to be captured, by and through cross-border collaborations under the globalization context, from Chinese herbal medicine. Both ethical single molecular entity (singleton) herb-derived drugs and mixed formula herb-derived drugs may be created going forward.by Lizhe Sun.S.M

Advances in Patient Classification for Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Machine Learning Perspective

As a complementary and alternative medicine in medical field, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has drawn great attention in the domestic field and overseas. In practice, TCM provides a quite distinct methodology to patient diagnosis and treatment compared to western medicine (WM). Syndrome (ZHENG or pattern) is differentiated by a set of symptoms and signs examined from an individual by four main diagnostic methods: inspection, auscultation and olfaction, interrogation, and palpation which reflects the pathological and physiological changes of disease occurrence and development. Patient classification is to divide patients into several classes based on different criteria. In this paper, from the machine learning perspective, a survey on patient classification issue will be summarized on three major aspects of TCM: sign classification, syndrome differentiation, and disease classification. With the consideration of different diagnostic data analyzed by different computational methods, we present the overview for four subfields of TCM diagnosis, respectively. For each subfield, we design a rectangular reference list with applications in the horizontal direction and machine learning algorithms in the longitudinal direction. According to the current development of objective TCM diagnosis for patient classification, a discussion of the research issues around machine learning techniques with applications to TCM diagnosis is given to facilitate the further research for TCM patient classification

An analysis of the medical professional conflicts and health care policy in South Korea

The purpose of the thesis is to explore the characteristics of the system of medical professions and its changes in terms of the conflicts existing among the medical professions in South Korea since the 1990s, in the light mainly of Abbott's theory of the professional system (Abbott, 1988). Four cases of conflict were examined and analysed: the conflict between oriental medicine and pharmacy over preparing oriental medicines; the one between western medicine and pharmacy over the separation system; the one between western medicine and oriental medicine over unification; and the one among the three medical professions over the National Health Insurance. This study used primary data from interviewing members, particularly elites, of the three medical professions, the government, the press and civic groups. The data included active and dynamic inside information about individual medical professions and conflicts.With the conflicts, the situations of the medical professional system has changed: pharmacy kept and even strengthened its position in the professional system; oriental medicine also found opportunities to develop its professionalism and fortify its position in health care; and western medicine faced its weakening influence in the medical professional system. In addition to a change in the influence of individual medical professions, the features of the conflicts have changed. The former two open conflicts were undertaken in a strong and violent way, using strikes and street demonstrations. However, in the latter two conflicts, professions attempted academic and logical strategies to control their situations.Through the four medical conflicts, more complex causes and situations have been uncovered in the medical professional system and health care in Korea. The conflicts have developed from professional jurisdictional ones into economic and political ones. Applying Abbott's factors to the Korean cases, the following points are outstanding: salient organisational development of individual professions; inconsistency between the influence of a dominant profession and the actual result of conflict; more dynamic and fundamental influences of political, economic, social and cultural factors; and the influence of the government's mismanagement

Brand Kerala: Commodification of Open Source Ayurveda

This dissertation aimed to understand formal and informal ayurvedic knowledge and practice through the framework of commodification, in the context of the recent emergence of global ayurvedic tourism in Kerala, India. The objective was to understand how commodification, both old and new, have affected knowledges and livelihoods of actors constituting the ayurvedic commodity chain, with a focus on `social lives\u27 of ayurvedic pharmaceuticals and select herb-ingredients. I argue that the trajectory of commodification in Kerala provides a stark contrast to the national mainstream with its focus on classical vis-à-vis proprietary medicines. This therapy-centric business model maintained the integrity of traditional ayurvedic practice by keeping the ayurvedic doctor within the loop. I suggest that the new wave of multi-faceted tourism-inspired commodification draws on this strength. This in turn has created a paradigmatic shift in the way ayurveda is commodified locally and globally, by switching focus from `pharmaceuticals\u27 to `services\u27, and `illness\u27 to `wellness\u27. I suggest that conceptualizing classical medicines as `open-source commodities\u27, brings attention to the significance of background knowledge processes. While distinct stakeholder characteristics and historic State patronage are significant factors, at the root of the commercial viability of open-source-ayurveda, I argue, is the continuity of a cultural practice, the robustness of it I attribute to its historical evolution in Kerala as a mass commodity in contrast to its elitist status elsewhere. However, industrialization threatens the traditional role of knowledge-intensive actors: doctors, consumers, raw drug shops and medicinal plant collectors. I argue that the industry\u27s role is contributory rather than causal; more significant in endangering ayurvedic metis are effects of modern institutionalization shaped by goals of homogenization and scientization. Discussing the nature of deskilling each node has undergone, I demonstrate the significance of `cultural stakes\u27 in the conservation of common property resources that are more often that not at loggerheads with `economic stakes\u27. The arguments in this dissertation are built over and contribute to three bodies of anthropological research: economic anthropology engaged in the study of commodities and commodification processes, ecological anthropology concerned with conservation of common property resources, and medical anthropology concerned with study of medical systems and pharmaceuticals