As it is well known, Western medicine explains the function of a whole body as
well as cells and bacterial diseases on the basis of the anatomical
knowledge.
In Western medicine, doctors treat the part in question considering that a change in
that part of a body caused the disease. Therefore, a disease is named after the
anatomical name of the part. For treatment, doctors prescribe medicine which works
on the problematicorgan.
For example, it is thought that a disease is the illness of a part of the body such
as stomach or heart and that the medicine should work on the certain part of the
system.

By comparison, the Oriental medicine regards the human body as a whole
organism and each organ and tissue are interacting.
A disease is a change in the body caused by certain factors and the change is the
response of the body to the internal and external causes. a Few symptoms are
interrelated to each other and not independent from each other.
Even though there hasn't been any change in appearance and clinical test, if a
patient is aware of a symptom, he has a good reason to consider it a symptom of a
disease.
 

In Oriental medicine, we identify the patterns of the biological phenomena
as Yin and Yang and strength (fullness) and weakness (emptiness).
We see the state vulnerable to illness as Yin syndrome, and reactive to it as Yang
syndrome.
Therefore, we do not prescribe the same medicine to all coughing patients.
Prescription differs from the state of Yin & Yang, and strength (fullness)
and weakness (emptiness).
 

Oriental medical stuff includes natural products such as animals, herbs, and
mineral. Among them, herbs including leaves, peels, fruits, roots are most often.
We cut herbs into pieces for use or, sometimes, soak them in drinks or salty water,
or roast them to increase the efficacy or remove the poison from herbs.

The Western medicine and Oriental medicine have different concepts of medical
efficacy. The former is more concerned about which component of the Western medicine
shows effect and the latter puts stress on how certain tastes and characteristics of
the medicine function. The strong point of Oriental medicine is that the medical
stuff made up of mostly natural products. We often find very interesting phenomena
in the mixture of herbal medicine. Toxicity gets mollified and the efficacy
intensifies when combined with other medical stuff. The safety of Oriental
medicine has been verified empirically by medication throughout the long
standing history. Whereas, our experience tells us that despite animal tests
and clinical tests, artificial Western medicine shows new side effects as
time goes by, which worries many researchers.

The World Health Organization is promoting a new medical system which has the strong
point of both the Western medicine and the traditional medicine of each region. In
particular, the World Health Organization has a basic policy to develop and support
the research of the superb medicine like Oriental medicine. Also, the WHO
emphasized the complementary role of traditional medicine and Western
medicine in the 1978 Alma Ata declaration.

Western medicine and Oriental medicine complements each other.
The Oriental medicine is very effective in the following cases;
First, diagnosis and treatment of diseases related with the function of the
body.
Second, early diagnosis and prevention of chronic degenerative diseases.
Third, diagnosis and treatment of epidemics which spread across a vast area
at a high rate.
By comparison, the merit of Western medicine can be found in the following cases;

① in the diagnosis and treatment of accidental diseases,
② in the diagnosis of diseases and preventive treatment, eg. hygiene based on
bacteriology and virology.
③ in the malfunction of seriously ill organs.

The strong points of each medicine pointed out by the WHO does not hint the
superiority of one or the other but demonstrate the two medicines are complementary.
Therefore, it is safe to say that Oriental medicine is the priceless asset of the
human race as well as the Korean people.

The comparison of the characteristics of the Oriental medicine and the
Western medicine.
 

Oriental medicine	Western medicine
philosophical	scientific
comprehensive	analytical
whole	local
internal medicine	surgical
pattern	disease
theroetical	experimental
individual medicine	general medicine
constitutional prevention	bacteriology
fluid pathology	bacterial pathology
subjective symptoms stressed	objective symptom stressed
natural medical stuff	chemical medicine

 

This page is edited by WebMaster of AKOM Web Services on May 23 1996.