Xu Xiangcai - Principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine: The Essential Guide to Understanding the Human Body

The Essential Guide to Understanding the Human Body

XU XIANGCAI

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Boston, Mass. USA

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20200529

Copyright 2001 by Xu Xiangcai

ISBN-13: 978-1-886969-99-5

ISBN-10: 1-886969-99-x

Edited by Sharon Rose

Cover design by Richard Rossiter

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Publishers Cataloging in Publication

(Prepared by Quality Books Inc.)

Xu, Xiangcai.

Principles of traditional Chinese medicine : the essential guide to understanding the human body / Xu

Xiangcai. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-886969-99-X

1. Medicine, Chinese. 2. Qi gong. 3. Alternative medicine. I. Title.

Disclaimer:

The authors and publisher of this material are NOT RESPONSIBLE in any manner whatsoever for any injury which may occur through reading or following the instructions in this manual.

The activities, physical or otherwise, described in this material may be too strenuous or dangerous for some people, and the reader(s) should consult a physician before engaging in them.

Printed in USA

by Prof. Dr. Hu Ximing

by Mr. Zhang Qiwen

I am delighted to learn that Traditional Chinese Health Secrets will soon come into the world. TCM has experienced many vicissitudes of times but has remained evergreen. It has made great contributions not only to the power and prosperity of our Chinese nation but to the enrichment and improvement of world medicine. Unfortunately, differences in nations, states and languages have slowed down its spreading and flowing outside China. Presently, however, an upsurge in learning, researching and applying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is unfolding. In order to bring the practice of TCM to all areas of the globe, Mr. Xu Xiangcai called intellectuals of noble aspirations and high intelligence together from Shandong and many other provinces in China to compile and translate this text. I believe that the day when the worlds medicine is fully developed will be the day when TCM has spread throughout the world.

I am pleased to give it my recommendation.

Prof. Dr. Hu Ximing

Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Public Health of the Peoples Republic of China, Director General of the State Administrative Bureau of Traditional Chinese, Medicine and Pharmacology, President of the World Federation of Acupuncture Moxibustion Societies, Member of China Association of Science & Technology, Deputy President of All-China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, President of China Acupuncture & Moxibustion Society

The Chinese nation has been through a long, arduous course of struggling against diseases. Through this struggle, it has developed its own traditional medicine-Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology (TCMP), TCMP has a unique, comprehensiveboth theories and clinical practicescientific system including both theories and clinical practice.

Though its beginnings were several thousand years ago, the practice of TCM has been well preserved and continuously developed. TCM has special advantages, which include remarkable curative effects and few side effects. It is an effective means by which people can prevent and treat diseases and keep themselves strong and healthy. All achievements attained by any nation in the development of medicine are the public wealth of all mankind. They should not be confined within a single country. What is more, the need to set them free to flow throughout the world as quickly and precisely as possible is greater than that of any other kind of science. During my more than thirty years of being engaged in the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), I have been looking forward to the day when TCMP will have spread all over the world and made its contributions to the elimination of diseases of all mankind. However, it is to be deeply regretted that the pace of TCMP in extending outside China has been unsatisfactory due to the major difficulties involved in expressing its concepts in foreign languages.

Mr. Xu Xiangcai, a teacher of Shandong College of TCM, has sponsored and taken charge of the work of compilation and translation of such knowledge into English. This work is a great project, a large-scale scientific research, a courageous effort and a novel creation. I am deeply grateful to Mr. Xu Xiangcai and his compilers and translators, who have been working day and night for such a long time on this project. As a leader in the circles of TCM, I am duty-bound to do my best to support them.

I believe this text will be certain to find its position both in the history of Chinese medicine and in the history of world science and technology.

Mr. Zhang Qiwen

Member of the Standing Committee of All-China Association of TCM, Deputy Head of the Health Department of Shandong Province

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of Chinas great cultural heritages. Since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the treasure house of the theories of TCM has been continuously explored and the plentiful literature researched and compiled. The effort was guided by the farsighted TCM policy of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. As a result, great success has been achieved. Today, a worldwide upsurge has appeared in the studying and researching of TCM. To promote even more vigorous development of this trend in order that TCM may better serve all humankind, efforts are required to further it throughout the world. To bring this about, the language barriers must be overcome as soon as possible in order that TCM can be accurately expressed in foreign languages. Thus, the compilation and translation of a series of English-Chinese books of basic knowledge of TCM has become more urgent to serve the needs of medical and educational circles both inside and outside China.

In recent years, at the request of the health departments, satisfactory achievements have been made in researching the expression of TCM in English. Based on the investigation of the history and current state of the research work mentioned above, has been published to meet the needs of extending the knowledge of TCM around the world.

The encyclopedia consists of twenty-one volumes, each dealing with a particular branch of TCM. In the process of compilation, the distinguishing features of TCM have been given close attention and great efforts have been made to ensure that the content is scientific, practical, comprehensive and concise. The chief writers of the Chinese manuscripts include professors or associate professors with at least twenty years of practical clinical and/or teaching experience in TCM. The Chinese manuscript of each volume has been checked and approved by a specialist of the relevant branch of TCM. The team of the translators and revisers of the English versions consists of TCM specialists with a good command of English professional medical translators and teachers of English from TCM colleges or universities. At a symposium to standardize the English versions, scholars from twenty-two colleges and universities, research institutes of TCM, and other health institutes probed the question of how to express TCM in English more comprehensively, systematically and accurately. The English version of each volume was re-examined and then final checked. Obviously this encyclopedia will provide extensive reading material of TCM English for senior students in colleges of TCM in China and will also greatly benefit foreigners studying TCM. The responsible leaders of three organizations support the diligent efforts of compiling and translating this encyclopedia: