Classical Chinese Medicine

Description

by Liu Lihong (Author), Heiner Fruehauf (Editor), Gabriel Weiss (Translator), Henry Buchtel (Translator), Sabine Wilms (Translator)
ISBN: 9789882370579
Publisher: Chinese University Press, 2019
696pp

The English edition of Liu Lihong’s milestone work is a sublime beacon for the profession of Chinese medicine in the 21st century. Classical Chinese Medicine delivers a straightforward critique of the politically motivated integration of traditional Chinese wisdom with Western science during the last sixty years, and represents an ardent appeal for the recognition of Chinese medicine as a science in its own right.

Professor Liu’s candid presentation has made this book a bestseller in China, treasured not only by medical students and doctors, but by vast numbers of non-professionals who long for a state of health and well-being that is founded in a deeper sense of cultural identity.

Oriental medicine education has made great strides in the West since the 1970s, but clear guidelines regarding the traditional nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) remain undefined. Classical Chinese Medicine not only delineates the educational and clinical problems faced by the profession in both East and West, but transmits concrete and inspiring guidance on how to effectively engage with ancient texts and designs in the postmodern age.

Using the example of the Shang Han Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage), one of the most important Chinese medicine classics, Liu Lihong develops a compelling roadmap for holistic medical thinking that links the human body to nature and the universe at large.

The author has produced a rare piece of writing in which profound meanings from the classics are handled in a simple, straightforward, and absorbing manner that is both unassuming and pleasant.