Ancient Herbs, Modern Medicine
Improving Your Health by Combining Chinese Herbal Medicine and Western Medicine
PART ONE
Understanding the Basics of Chinese Medicine
Chapter 1
Chinese and Western Medicines, Past and Present
How these medicines evolved in different directions and how they can come together
When Wang Qingren, a doctor of Chinese medicine, attended public executions in 1797, tagging along to the gravesites, then returning in the shadow of night to perform autopsies, his clandestine activities served an honorable purpose. In the early seventeenth century an Italian explorer and missionary had brought into China the book
Method of the West, which had provided the first glimpse into Western medicine.
After that, Western medical literature was further introduced into China via Christian missionaries. Performing autopsies helped Dr. Wang verify some of the knowledge of anatomy that he had learned from his reading. Unlike his Western counterparts of that era who freely attended gross-anatomy classes, Dr. Wang was forced to work under a cloak of secrecy because of the Chinese cultural vene ...
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