In the time of Mr. Zhang Zhongjing, all externally contracted diseases were classified Cold Damage (伤寒). 伤寒有五：有中风，有伤寒，有湿温，有热病，有温病。 – The Classic of Difficulties (难经) Cold Damage was the umbrella term for all classifiable infectious diseases then. The Classic of Difficulties gives us the five sub-categories: Wind Strike (中风), Cold Damage (伤寒), Damp-Warmth (湿温), Hot Diseases (热病) and [...]

I focused on the schools that had a “university (大学)” status. Most TCM Schools of higher learning were still institutions then (学院). I took a one month long trip to see the five big TCM universities, beginning in Beijing. Beijing (www.bjucmp.edu.cn) I had already been to Beijing before, so the focus was not on sightseeing. Having already [...]

Technically, no. Not if it’s defined really technically. However, if we remember what Karl Popper said, then it is as much a Science as this science of hypotheses and theories is. Science is a history of corrected mistakes. – Karl Popper Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a long history, much longer that possessed by Cartesian biomedicine as we [...]

As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know. - Donald Rumsfeld, Poetic Militant of the most [...]

On Cold Damage is a masterpiece by a master. A master from eons ago may be someone we look up to, but we needn’t do as he did without some critical thinking on our part. That’s exactly what many physicians kept doing since the Han era, with an upsurge after the Song era. Times have [...]