EASTERN MEDICINE AS A SYSTEMS SCIENCE

摘要

Eastern medicine defines health as a state of balance in the process of the individual'srnadaptation to the ever-changing environment, a state of balance between the individual'srninternal defense mechanism and the external factors in the environment. In other words,rnhealth in Eastern medicine is a state of homeostatic equilibrium of the individual seen asrnan open system. Reflecting such a holistic and systemic conception of health, Easternrnmedicine relies on a number of important principles that are very different from thosernemployed in Western medicine. Unlike the Cartesian dualism that characterizes modernrnWestern medicine, Eastern medicine considers mind and body as inseparable entitiesrnwhose balance is an integral part of health of the individual. Maintaining balancernbetween the opposing yet complementary factors of yin and yang facilitates maintainingrnhealth as a state of balance. The yin-yang balance is closely tied up with the mind-bodyrncomplementarity in maintaining health. Traditional Chinese medicine has developed twornother important concepts in maintaining health, namely, the vital energy called qi and thernmeridian system. The qi-energy circulates in the meridian system, which is an invisible,rncirculatory system of the body that is linked to the outside world through the acupuncturernpoints. A state of imbalance in qi-energy―excessive or deficient, blocked orrnstagnated―would lead to a pathological state of the individual. This paper illustratesrnhow the principles of Eastern medicine are applied in the practice of acupuncturerntreatment in contemporary Japan called the Hokushinkai School.