The Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine also known as traditional Chinese medicine, the oldest in the world, is a philosophical and therapeutic system of knowledge that combines a vision of the cosmos based on correspondences and similarities in practice divided into a number of specific techniques – including the ‘ acupuncture, massage and acupressure. Especially the latter has made very popular in the contemporary West, although his approach symbolic and scientific along with nature, is the subject of strong interest to multiple levels, from the educated and knowledgeable to the simple mass curiosity.

Chinese medicine is still taught in universities and practiced in hospitals as a set of complementary disciplines in medicine or conventional western approach. This conception of philosophical doctor has now spread around the world, to the point that the World Health Organization has officially recognized the use of many of its therapeutic methods (especially acupuncture) for the treatment of various diseases.

Effectiveness of Chinese Medicine

You begin with there are techniques and treatments such as acupuncture, Chinese massage and acupressure, which have received recognition from the official-conventional medicine in the world and are used for specific diseases such as complementary methods to the usual therapies, and traditional Chinese medicine as an overall view of the natural world and the human being and as a perfectly coherent system of care with their theoretical principles.

In this second case, the Chinese medicine is considered an approach “alternative”, and while exploiting some proceedings contemporary Western science still tends to relegate among the obsolete pre-modern knowledge, although its venerable antiquity subtracts usually the most violent attacks. However attempts are made to fruitful cross-fertilization, in a more open and curious perspective that is bearing fruit even in non-marginal areas.

The efficacy of Chinese medicine, in particular of its best-known treatments, there is no question: there are numerous impartial studies, conducted with the most rigorous experimental method, which have shown and continue to prove it. Even in Italy is no longer uncommon for a family doctor, of course free from preconceptions, tips of sessions of acupuncture for the symptomatic treatment of various pain states, acute or chronic.

Rudiments of Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine, certainly the earliest of the traditional medicines, is the harmoniously complete expression of the spirit and culture that has developed over the centuries. Its basic principles are the same ones that inform the global vision of his own world of philosophy and religion of China. First, the idea of ​​a dynamic unity based on systematic correspondence: the universe is an articulated whole, in constant metamorphosis, but the actors of this metamorphosis are the same forces, the same elements in their mutual relationship.

It start from One, that Chinese thought called Tao This principle of all things is represented as a circle divided into two opposing and complementary half suggesting a vortex, so strong dynamism: a white with an internal point, a seed or an embryo, in black, the other black with a white dot. The first is the masculine force, active, bright, hot, teacher, thin-celeste: yang. The second is the feminine force, passive-receptive, dark, cold, material, earthly: the yin. As the symbol of Tao, yin and yang are in a complementary relationship: everything is made of both, looks yin and a yang aspect.

This unity of the Tao manifests itself in an energy that surrounds and penetrates the whole universe and every single thing: the qi, the breath, the vibratory rhythm of life, “soul of the world” in which he outlines the polarity between male and female , assets and liabilities-receptivity, yang and yin.

There are five subtle elements and phases or original dynamics (wuxing) which expresses the yin-yang polarity. It is a five archetypes or primordial forms that connect in a series of correspondences all levels of nature:

1. Wood, which corresponds to the color green, is the element of the vegetation that is renewed in the spring (yang event);
2. Fire, which corresponds to the red, is the element of the light and heat and the upward trend, typical of the summer and yang;
3. Earth, which corresponds to the yellow, is the receptive element that nourishes and matures, as happens especially in late summer (yin event);
4. Metal, connected to the white color, it is the energy element that contracts and declines, as it happens in the autumn, yin season;
5. Water, associated with black, is the energy element that drops down and hides or off, as in winter (season dominated by yin).

The five elements are transformed into each other, in a ceaseless rotation which is the same kind of movement: from the wood is released the flame, the fire, by the action of the fire consuming the ashes are born and then the earth, in the veins of the earth will form the metal, which in the fusion liquefies and becomes water, from which revives the wood (the spring) and so on.

Where do we find this energy in the body? The slim and energetic anatomy Chinese character is especially expressed in the meridian concept (jingluo): the meridians are in fact the waterways that connect the internal organs and viscera of the human body with the parties on the surface, and their significance is particularly evident in classical therapeutic practices such as acupuncture and moxibustion.

We have 12 regular meridians:

1. Lung-hand channel (connected to yin);
2. Heart-hand channel (yin);
3. Pericardium-hand channel (yin);
4. “Triple heater”- hand channel (yang);
5. Small intestine-hand channel (yang);
6. Large intestine gut-hand channel (yang);
7. Spleen-foot channel (yin);
8. Kidney-foot channel (yin);
9. Kidney-foot channel (yin);
10. Gallbladder-foot channel (yang);
11. Bladder-foot channel (yang);
12. Stomach-foot channel (yang).

To these are added eight extraordinary meridians, that have no direct relationship with the internal organs and are rather of deposit subtle energy channels or tanks.

We finally meridians 15 side, corresponding to the 12 regular and 2 extraordinary (du and ren) with the addition of a side greater for the spleen. Many are their functions: they allow the circulation of qi and most important fluid, blood, communicate warmth and vitality to various parts of the body and especially constitute a network of energy connections which maintains the unity and integrity of the organism.

Knowing this “map” subtle means acquiring the tools to treat: in fact the disease coincides with an alteration of the flow of qi and blood along the meridian channels and areas in which symptoms occur may indicate, thanks to the connections between the internal organs and the surface areas, the deep nature of the pathology in progress.