🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Over the past 40 years, integrative TCM and Western medicine have achieved many significant results, widely welcomed by the domestic public and positively influencing international communities.
What is Integration of TCM and Western Medicine?
After decades of practice, this question seems settled. However, due to the nature of Chinese characters, the term "yi" can mean "physician," "treatment," or "medicine." Thus, some believe integration means collaboration between TCM physicians and Western physicians, while others interpret it as combining both treatment methods.
While collaboration between TCM and Western medicine practitioners is crucial—it is a prerequisite for integration—mere cooperation does not equate to true integration. Using both systems together to achieve outcomes superior to either alone represents a preliminary approach. This is easily accepted and recognized. In China, the popularity of integrative medicine stems largely from its efficacy. Similarly, in Western countries, a trend exists. In the U.S., non-conventional medicine is termed Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), including herbal remedies, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, qigong, yoga, etc. According to a 2004 survey by the National Institutes of Health CAM Center, among adults across 50 U.S. states, 36.0% had used CAM within the previous year, with 55% citing that combining CAM with conventional Western medicine enhanced health. However, simple additive use of both systems is not genuine integration, though it often serves as a precursor to true synergy.
Correct understanding of integration clearly refers to "medicine," as the concept emerged closely tied to the assertion that "Chinese medicine is a great treasure house, which should be thoroughly explored and elevated." Moreover, the goal of integration is to "create a unified new medicine and pharmacology in China."
Can TCM and Western Medicine Be Integrated?
TCM and Western medicine developed in different historical and cultural contexts, differing significantly in viewpoints, methods, and tools. Their theoretical and practical systems are independent, leading some to doubt their compatibility. Indeed, history shows some systems cannot be integrated. Religiousized Galenic medicine and science-based modern Western medicine were mutually exclusive and could not coexist—only after eliminating the former could the latter develop. Religious Galenic medicine followed scholastic philosophy, filled with superstition and ignorance, resulting in widespread epidemics and massive deaths. In contrast, TCM is guided by primitive materialism and dialectics, summarizing practical experiences in disease prevention and treatment. TCM and modern Western medicine are complementary; their integration promotes medical advancement.
Some argue that since TCM studies "human beings with metaphysical attributes (syndromes)" while Western medicine studies "human beings with physical attributes (organs, cells, molecules)," the two objects of study are "incommensurable." TCM relies on systemic methods, Western medicine on reductionist methods—this is seen as an inevitable choice dictated by the object of study, rendering the methods themselves "incommensurable."
This argument touches on the fundamental issue of whether integration is possible and warrants deeper exploration. First, it conflates the object of study with perspectives, methods, and tools. The object of study refers to the entity observed and analyzed, existing independently of the researcher. In contrast, perspectives, methods, and tools depend on historical context, philosophical beliefs, scientific and technological levels. The same method can study different objects, and the same object can be studied using different methods. Both TCM and Western medicine are forms of medicine concerned with human life processes. Fundamentally, TCM and Western medicine are compatible—there is no insurmountable barrier due to differing objects of study. Second, the claim that systemic and reductionist methods are "incommensurable" needs scrutiny. Some equate Western medicine solely with cellular pathology, localization, microbiology, and specific etiology, while associating TCM exclusively with systems theory, emphasizing that TCM already contained the core rationality of systems theory—the world’s first successful application of systemic methods in medicine. Yet modern systems theory originated in the West and has played a crucial role in modern medicine. Neuro-endocrine theory, homeostasis theory, stress theory, receptor theory, immunology, environmental medicine, psychosomatic medicine, and social medicine—all developments reflect Western medicine’s growing emphasis on systemic approaches. The shift from biomedical model to biopsychosocial model further illustrates this trend.
Systems theory emerged mid-20th century and has been applied in modern medicine for a relatively short time, yet it has yielded promising results. Applying systems theory to TCM research has occurred for at least two to three decades, yet it remains largely confined to describing "primitive ideas," "early forms," or "rational kernels" of systems theory. Beyond praising ancient wisdom, what tangible progress has TCM made? This is a matter worthy of deep reflection.
Methodology of Integrative TCM and Western Medicine
Systematic methodology treats the subject of study as a holistic system, focusing on interactions and relationships among the whole system, its components, component-to-component relations, and system-environment dynamics. It comprehensively examines the object to achieve thorough and precise understanding and optimal problem-solving. It is a method for studying the overall connections of the subject.
Reductionist methodology proceeds from the whole to parts, essentially analytical. Modern science’s development relied heavily on experimental and analytical methods. Its characteristics include understanding the whole through its parts, macro through micro, and lower-level processes through higher ones. It breaks down the object into components, analyzing each part in detail, enabling scientific research to deepen, become precise, and rigorous.
Crucially, reductionism and systems theory, analysis and synthesis, are not mutually exclusive or incompatible. Modern scientific methodology has evolved from reductionist analysis toward systematic synthesis—not a rejection of reductionism, but a dialectical negation. Both emphasize the intrinsic relationship between whole and parts, affirming that the human body and disease do not deviate from general physical and chemical laws, thus requiring decomposition and reduction. However, reductionism emphasizes parts, neglecting wholeness; systems theory emphasizes the whole, advocating understanding parts from a holistic perspective. Reductionism overemphasizes the foundational role of parts in determining the whole and favors downward analysis; systems theory advocates both downward and upward pathways—acknowledging the foundational role of parts while also recognizing the dominance and control of the whole over parts and the environment over the whole. Modern science’s systematic methodology combines reductionist analysis with systemic synthesis. Systemic synthesis is grounded in reductionist analysis; without accurate, detailed understanding of individual components, systemic synthesis cannot proceed.
Reductionist analysis opened paths to the microscopic and detailed. Thanks to reductionist analysis, modern science and medicine emerged. Since mid-20th century, the introduction of systems theory, information theory, cybernetics, and social sciences, combined with integration of static and dynamic, macro and micro, qualitative and quantitative approaches, and cross-disciplinary penetration and new technologies, has advanced modern medicine.
Though TCM embodies systemic thinking, lacking absorption of modern science and its methodologies, it has not developed necessary analytical and reductionist research, failed to truly access the microscopic realm or understand macro from micro, and lacks sufficient experimental research. Thus, TCM’s systemic thinking remains at the level of "prototype" or "naive systems theory." To advance to modern scientific systems theory, TCM must overcome these historical shortcomings.
Over the past 40 years, integrative TCM and Western medicine have achieved many major accomplishments, promoting China’s medical development. These achievements, when viewed through a methodological lens, involve introducing modern medical research methods into TCM theory, principles, formulas, and pharmacology. Since these methods differ from TCM’s holistic and naive systems theory, they sometimes provoke objections, with concerns that integration leads to "Westernization of TCM." Such worries are unnecessary and sometimes contradictory. For instance, using immunology to explain "zheng qi" (healthy qi) or homeostasis theory to interpret "yin ping yang mi" (harmony between yin and yang), yet omitting any reference to Western medicine, implies immunology and homeostasis theory are unrelated to Western medicine. In such studies, researchers deliberately avoid discussing modern immunological advances or specific mechanisms of homeostasis regulation (e.g., messenger systems, receptor systems), as if delving into details risks "Westernization." This overly rigid emphasis on holistic synthesis is essentially continuing "recording without creation," seeking self-improvement through "commentary." Integrative TCM and Western medicine should fully adopt the latest knowledge and technology from modern medicine to continuously achieve new breakthroughs.
Another source of criticism lies in the use of reductionist analysis in integrative research. Some argue that studying Chinese herbs must be through complex formulas and syndrome differentiation; analyzing single herbs, especially isolating active ingredients, is not true TCM research. Yet the discovery of artemisinin posed a dilemma: unwilling to acknowledge it as a milestone in modernizing TCM, yet unable to deny its global contribution to public health. From an integrative perspective, this issue is easily resolved. Discovering a new antimalarial drug from traditional Chinese herbs is a new contribution of TCM to humanity. Of course, integrative research on herbs extends beyond single-herb analysis. Combining analysis and synthesis has produced successful results in formula and syndrome-differentiated research.
In sum, the vitality of integrative TCM and Western medicine lies in effectively incorporating modern medical research methods—specifically, the integration of analysis and synthesis—into the study of TCM theory, principles, formulas, and pharmacology.