Origins and Approach   |   Yin and Yang   |   Five Elements  |   Vital Substances   |   Zang-Fu Organs

"The patient does not care about your science;                                
                what he wants to know is, can you cure him?" - Martin H. Fischer

The theories of traditional Asian medicine are, including Acupuncture and herbal pharmacology, are extremely complex and multifaceted. An hundred-volume encyclopedia could not adequately represent all the nuances of just the theories aspect alone. It is an extremely difficult task trying to hand pick a few topics, among thousands, applicable to the medicine. And among the hand-picked few, there is the challenge of writing about a foreign topic in an isolated context without falling back on lengthy discussions on their origins, definitions, behavior, relationships and implications.

To try to explain what this medicine is about in a few pages entails oversimplification and for clinical purposes, elementary gibberish. Yet, for our patients who genuinely have an interest, we practitioners risk reducing the art and science of a complex medicine to a handful of descriptions, when in fact the practice of it encompasses so much more.

In all cases where pathologies are discussed, the reader is advised not to self-diagnose based on the simplifications presented here. They do not reflect the hundreds of other factors and variations that exist nor take into account the relationships between different theories as they unfailingly interact in ways too complex to be addressed here.



Origins and Approach   |   Yin and Yang   |   Five Elements  |   Vital Substances   |   Zang-Fu Organs