Throughout the history of Chinese medicine, there has been a frequent oscillation between authors who advocate a "return to the classics" for inspiration and guidance with those authors who essentially stated that "modern patients have illnesses that are new and unique" (implying or overtly stating that it is more important to learn about contemporary illnesses and patients than it is to stick to the "traditional."  It would be easy to argue that this attitude towards contemporary patients and their illnesses is more important today than it ever was historically.  Even if the patient has a "clean" diet and lifestyle, a wide range of environmental toxins such as arsenic, asbestos, pesticides, phthalates, etc., interfere with the physiology of humans and whether it is the role of environmental toxins or other pernicious agents or a combination is essentially "academic." Regardless of the reason(s), saying that the net result is troubling is an understatement.  The significant decline in human sperm counts together with the increasing frequency (and in some patients severity) of allergic and autoimmune disease is not only staggering but there is no reason to believe that these disturbing trends will either plateau or recede leading to the obvious question of what will be the nature of humans and their illnesses in 10, 20, and 50 years out? 

 

If one is to dramatically simplify Chinese medicine one of the main problems facing humans is "deficiency" which can be seen as depletion of various types of substances of the body, including "Qi" (roughly translated as energy, a more accurate translation is intelligent metabolism) and "stagnation" which usually can be remedied with things like exercise and acupuncture.  In other words, basically, you need to have enough of "vital substances" and what you have needs to flow reasonably well (Again this is a dramatic oversimplification that I am sure some of my colleagues would take issue with.) Diet, herbal formulas, lifestyle modifications, etc. can all be used to strengthen any organs or substrates that are found to be deficient and "stagnation" which can usually be remedied with things like exercise, herbal formulas, and acupuncture.  

 

However, there are several challenges facing modern patients and practitioners that patients frequently present with that either did not exist or in some cases existed but in no way similar to the vast numbers of patients suffering from these disorders that exist today.  One of these is the treatment of deficiency patterns in the presence of toxicity patterns.  While the Chinese practitioners had some experience with eliminating or reducing "toxicity" from things such as Heavy Metals (usually from food or herbal formulas) they did not see patients with the "toxic smorgasbord" that contemporary patients present with.  The traditional Chinese physicians were well aware of the dangers and inabilities involved with trying to "tonify" (deficiencies) in the presence of "toxic" influences, however for them the primary experience of what we would call "toxic" influences was the presence of disease-causing agents.  For example, the Chinese practitioners came up with a theory of "Li Qi" that was remarkably similar to the modern concept of viruses, hundreds of years before the West and obviously without electron microscopes. Just in case the clinical situation was not complicated enough already, modern patients, etc., are in the midst of an increasing trend toward allergy and autoimmune disorders.  So despite my attending a school that had a reputation for having one of the strongest Chinese herbal programs in the U.S., and my belief upon graduating that I would be primarily an herbalist, after about 5 years of seeing the pros and cons of the traditional styles I was taught, I realized that if the goal was to create significant changes in the patient's experience of illness, that I would have to learn other modalities (such as Homotoxicology).  — Michael Young, L.Ac.