Talk:Traditional Chinese medicine/Archive 3

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This article is about traditional Chinese medicine

It is not about religion nor is it about western science. If you are not knowledgeable enough about this subject to tell the difference, please take your much-needed editing skills to aticles that need your help. There are many. Vandalising this article is not helping much. heidimo 03:12, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

This article is a Wikipedia article. What it is not is a personal POV page for anyone. I think the article is very good, well written, and tends to be clear and fairly balanced. However, there is certainly more than one way of looking at TCM. I have moved all of RK's additions to more proper (IMHO) places within the text. I intend to edit these down or combine them with other statements in the article as I have time. I do not agree that disputing the tenets of any article on a social issue is something that must go at the top. Those most knowledgeable about TCM should dominate the description of it; not those most critical. Aafter all, until they fairly and well describe it, criticism is a waste of time. I see plenty of opportunity in the article's lower sections to discuss the scientific basis of TCM (or lack thereof). I expect that in these sections, the skeptical point of view will receive fair treatment. I also expect both sides to buy in on what I am saying here; that is, take the editing to those sections where it is most helpful. I remind both parties that this page will be editied by many others for years to come; long after your involvement has ended. Therefore, it is pointless to just protect a POV. Your only guarantee that your ideas will continue to be expressed here is by presenting them so well and non-controversial, that others will not bother to improve on them. - Marshman 00:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Great Chinese Medicine article !

Thank you, Heidimo! Nice work you were doing there! (just linked to your parts from Wiki) - irismeister 17:42, 2004 Mar 26 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the feedback! heidimo 02:57, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dear Heidimo, we should perhaps do something in concert about vandals mixing their own POV under a spurious NPOV aegis and massacrating perfectly legitimate, deep and caring research, as you did in Chinese Medicine.

Perhaps we should complain and reverse to your version systematically when people step in and start quibbling about "religious" matterns in a system that works continuously for what - six thousand years, twelve thousand years...

During that period we had shamanism and animism, Bon and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and who knows what else. And yet Chinese Medicine works as good as ever.

If Dr Kim Bong Han was stupid enough to describe collagen "bodies" under some points and Swift's scientists were busy eating poems written on bread, it does not mean that Chinese Medicine has to yield some evidence for our poor minds. It means that we, in Western Medicin,e are not subtle enough to understand the marvelous human being.

As we started cutting the hair in four like we did, my feeling is that conventional medicine will never integrate Chinese Medicine, which is simply too much for everybody in the West to understand fully. Considering all this, you did a very subtle and great article by any standard. Thank YOU for doing it so fine, knowledgeable and profound. - Yours, - irismeister 21:08, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

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Irismeister, thanks for your insightful comments on the topics at hand (tcm and vandalism). I'm sure the vandals will be back, since tcm is such an irresistable target. I appreciate your vigilance in these matters. Seems arrogant to me that a few scientists seem to feel that tcm owes them a scientific explanation as to why, how, and if something works after thousands of years of success, but that is only my opinion. heidimo 02:46, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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It's my opinion, too, Heidimo! Look, do not let yourself intimidated, and keep up the good work. With time, the difference will be made, as if all by itself (like in the glorious millennia of TCM so far.) I might not write you back for a while, since I'll be banned soon for defending the search for truth in various Wikipedic matters, but I'm not bitter at all. There is no valediction, only a caveat in such TCM editing case stories. As long as you keep your humor and your sense of everlasting value (which are abundent by all standards) you'll ride the tide. "There is the dark side, and then the luminous side... The lighting on the hill is subtle and can only be judged by its results..." :O) Yours - irismeister 07:34, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

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Heidimo & Co.,

Well done. Traditional Chinese Medicine isn't "scientific," but it is academic and in many schools, effective. There are many different branches of TCM (China is a big country with a looong history), some more effective than others. To want to belittle all of TCM because it doesn't meet a narrow outside definition of proof (even though it has helped millions of people for thousands of years using techniques which are reproducible) is like saying the Egyptian pyramid builders were also so many useless frauds because they didn't subscribe to Scientific American. So, thank you for standing up for us quaint, childlike natives and preserving a dignified perspective for an important article.

Fire Star 20:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I see a direct parallel between modern Chinese medicine and Western Medieval medicine

This conversation was copied from the former talk:Conventional medicine.

I see a direct parallel between modern Chinese medicine and Western Medieval medicine. Medieval medicine is basically Greek medicine and Galen's work at its worst! Chinese medicine, like its counter part Western Medieval medicine, is a functional medicine that develops when surgery and dissections of the human body are not permitted.

An interesting idea. however, Chinese medicine (TCM) has a few millennia of evolution behind it, while mediaeval medicine is only a crude concoction of Galen, as you correctly identified it. You are wrong however in assuming TCM is a contorted development. There is a beautiful treatise of Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China - which I cannot possibly recommend to you less. It's a masterpiece ! - - irismeister 16:01, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese medicine has Five Elements:metal, wood, earth, water, fire. Compare that to the Western Classical elements: fire, air, water, and earth. And Galen's four humours: phlegm (water), yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), and blood (air) has parallels in Chinese medicine.

Correct, John, TCM has the same ontologic ideas as Chinese Philosophy. However, the parallel stops there. - - irismeister 16:01, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

In short, I would no more praise Chinese medicine than I would recommend Medieval medicine. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 14:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

TCM has perhaps twelve thousand years of success behind it, and works for more than a billion people nowadays. It couldn't be wrong. Our medicine will only last as much as the Western Civilization, a very late if apparently successful outspring of the Old European Civilization. - - irismeister 16:01, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

Did you hear the one about TCM? The lecturer talked for hours about TCM. It was not until I got home that I realized that he was not talking about Traditional Conventional Medicine! Ha!, ... Hah, Ha!

The only difference between TCM and TCM (i.e., Chinese Medicine) is that the Orientals were fixated for thousands of years while Westerns got over it in a few hundred years. The only real difference between TCM and TCM are the herbs! Westerns use Western herbs and the Orients prefer their own Oriental herbs. Foreign herbs appear more exotic to Westerners. And, Chinese medicine has an exotic appeal only because it is foreign. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health

~

Yes, absolutely right and well done! The hieroglyph for Chinese medicine has three radicals, with one showing this pot where plants are apparently subject to extraction. - irismeister 17:23, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

RK's edits

Do you realize that you created a new section that already exists, resulting in two sections with the same name? Please read the article before you edit it. Cheers, Jiang 02:21, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

RK, within a few minutes of his edit of TCM tried the same tactic on Alternative medicine. I of course, reverted his edit. It was about the 2nd or 3rd revert I did on RK this month. Once you realize that RK is just full of hot air, his tactics of intimation vaporize. I think I will check out the other articles just now vandalized by RK. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 03:39, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

RK's vandalism of TCM has been reported. Please report his vandalism of other articles as well. Thanks! heidimo 15:58, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To whom and what link should RK's vandalism be reported to? -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 16:13, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Here. heidimo 16:19, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/RK has been created as structured way to gather support in the Wikipedian community for action to be taken against user:RK for his consistent use of aggressive editing tactics that are counter productive to the development of high quality encyclopedic articles. Now, is your chance to voice your grievances against user:RK. Please take a few minutes of your time to air your comments. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 04:12, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• Absolutely not !. Please read what the Vandalism_in_progress page is used for at Wikipedia. It is not where you list a disagreement on POV. Well-meaning edits, whether you agree or disagree with them, do not constitute vandalism. Please show more respect for those editors and admins that need to respond to vandalism - Marshman 00:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I know vandalism when I see it. And, I would classify what RK did as vandalism. Editors like RK should be banned. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 03:15, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I do not want to have to defend everything RK has ever done, as I am not famaliar with that entire body of work. But the fact remains that what RK and heidimo are scraping about (and what heidimo reported as vandalism), is NOT vandalism. If you are now putting your opinion in on that specific issue, you need to read the vandalism page introduction. If you have another example that I might agree with you on, then send me to it - Marshman 03:54, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I stand by my previous statements. Non-"isolated instances of text deletions and replacements intentionally ... offensive .... systematic attack on several articles" (namely both alternative medicine and TCM within about one hour of each other and 3 attacks in 2004 alone in alternative medicine constitutes vandalism by the rules. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 05:31, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are many valid criticisms of Chinese medicine, just as there are many valid criticisms of Western medicine, and they certainly shouldn't be ignored, but vandalism is vandalism and reporting it is the way to go. One wonders why he is so threatened by the subject?

SEE ABOVE. You are incorrect. (Fire Star thoughtfully responds): Thanks, I love you, too. Reporting behaviour that we may feel disruptive (trashing an entire subject is well meaning? There must be a better way to present a criticism) to an arbitrator or moderator is the accepted procedure at Wikipedia, I thought. Then a determination can be made as to whether what is happening actually IS vandalism. That is why I said reporting his edits is the way to go. I myself haven't been in an editing war with the guy, others here are dealing with him. This rant is just my two cents off article about scientific fundamentalists.

Chinese medicine is a huge, multifaceted subject with many side disciplines. The version of Chinese medicine that I am studying personally also involves the body mechanics of the Chinese martial arts (and their concomitant therapeutic effects) which is something medieval European medicine never approached. Basically, I can prove empirically that my "magical thinking" metaphors accurately describe a demonstrable technique because I am quite capable of knocking skeptics on their butts, or breaking their limbs, or paralysing their breathing, etc., with very little effort on my part and there isn't much short of firing a gun they can do to stop me! So, when they can actually do what I can do, physically, and demonstrate it to me, then I will accept their criticisms of what I do as valid. I don't say that to be pugnacious, rather I say it to point out that there are many ways (some of them painful, LOL) to demonstrate the depth of practical knowledge preserved by many traditional cultures that go beyond the limited semantic playing field some Westerners try to establish for what they insist is "reality" (as if they are the only people in the world who have a right to an opinion) because they have the scientifically approved jargonistically elaborate "magic spells" to describe things. This dismissive (at best) or coercive (at worst) attitude that many of these guys adopt smacks of the cultlike political behaviour associated with the religions they like to criticise. One begins to wonder if there is such a large functional difference between Carl Sagan's and the Amazing Randi's version of "science" and the medieval religions they would lump all us "magical thinkers" (sic) whom they feel the need to demonize, into. One gets the impression these types would dearly love to simply tell the people who work to preserve traditional Chinese culture to stop being so ethnic and start conforming to their technologically pure plan for the world. And we all know how healthy the polluting side effects of Western technology are, don't we?

Rant over...

Cheers, Fire Star 20:15, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We are going in circles

Marshman,

Please refer to the page history starting from where Adam Carr touched this page on January 24 and refer to the discussion in /archive1 and /archive2. The text he inserted recently was inserted a couple months ago. It was not outright reverted by User:Roadrunner, but edited to be more NPOV. RR left extensive explanations of his edits, all of which can be found the the two archives. Since this text has already been inserted and parts of it shot down while others kept and reworded, it is entirely inapproprate for us to be reinserting it. Therefore, I will revert your edits.

Note that I have not reviewed Heidimo's edits and cannot say whether he deleted text to favor TCM. If the case is with his edits, then deal with those, not RR's, Fuzheado, or mine. This is not to say that all of RK's edits are invalid. Refer to the page history and view how they have been reworded and reinsert any text that has been removed that shouldnt have. We'll build on the article this way, not with the same wording from January where we have to start the process all over again and put many edits to waste.

--Jiang 01:34, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken about what I did. I changed only two things: I deleted some introductory paragraphs added by RK at the very beginning—I was going to move them down lower, but found them all points better discussed already where I wanted to move them. I moved the material heidimo keeps reverting (put in by RK) to more proper subtitles. Admittedly (and as I say in my discussion at the top of this page), these writeups will need to be integrated into the existing text under those subheadings; something which I have not had time to do (and you are welcome to tackle). However, if you are just going to revert those additions, then you are doing no more than heidimo has been doing "protecting" this page from any changes. She regards RK's additions as vandalism; I think the article is pretty well balanced, but RK has some very valid points in need of amplification. I made no changes to RR's (exception as stated if you mean RK's), Fuzheado, or your material. It is apparent to me that in making wholesale deletions, some of you have lost track of the purpose of improving the article by editing. - Marshman 02:49, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK. I see that you just moved some material recently put in by RK and repeatedly reverted by hiedimo back up under "Introduction", making that section more of a "Uses" section. I have no problem there at all, but hiedimo might. You deleted the following:

TCM is based on the religious idea that the human body contains special "energies" and "elements" that are unknown to science. The foundational principle is that if all the energies are in balance, the body heals as a natural outcome.

No adeherent of TCM has been able to demonstrate the existence of "qi" in a peer-reviewed, controlled study. Scientists hold that if no one can show that such energues exists, either directly or indirectly, then one may not make the assumption that they are real. Many proponents of TCM claim that they can detect and manipulate these energies, but they can only demonstrate this to fellow believers. Scientists believe that this is analagous to people who claim that they can interact with God. In both cases, only believers agree, while no proof exists which can convince non-believers.

Most doctors and scientists hold that people who claim to sense such energies are deceiving themselves with magical thinking. Dr. Phillips Stevens writes "Many of today's complementary or alternative systems of healing involve magical beliefs, manifesting ways of thinking based in principles of cosmology and causality that are timeless and absolutely universal. So similar are some of these principles among all human populations that some cognitive scientists have suggested that they are innate to the human species, and this suggestion is being strengthened by current scientific research....Some of the principles of magical beliefs described above are evident in currently popular belief systems. A clear example is homeopathy...The fundamental principle of its founder, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), similia similibus curentur ("let likes cure likes"), is an explicit expression of a magical principle."

The validity of the principles on which TCM is believed by its practitioners to work has not been demonstrated by Western science. The form of energy known as Qi, for example, which is central to the theory of TCM, has never been detected by Western science. Yet if such a form of energy did exist, and Western science had failed to detect it, this would surely have a major effect on the practice of medicine in the West (in other words, if the TCM explanation of illness is correct, then the Western explanation must be wrong, and this would have observable consequences).

This is also material recently added by RK and continuously reverted by hiedimo. I'm putting it here rather than returning it to the article text. We can then review it to see if it is new, better said, or otherwise worthwhile for the article.

-- Marshman 03:00, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#what?, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive1#questionable statement, Talk:Traditional_Chinese_medicine/archive2#RK_v._RR. There's no need to repeat arguments that have already been made and edits that have already been done. Please examine the page history to see what has come out of these paragraphs and how they were changed. We will work from there. --Jiang 06:43, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK. I see your point. If you are happy where things stand right now with the article, I'm ready to "work from there" as you say. I think I understand perfectly well why many statements in RK's stuff above are unacceptable. The material you moved up to Uses was fine with me, but Heidimo had deleted it earlier, perhaps mistakingly. I restored it but moved it down, thinking it was from RK; but it looks good where you put it - Marshman 08:04, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I can't really say I'm happy with the article at present since I haven't really been following its changes since TomSwiss edited on 8 Feb 2004. My point is that RK's text has been added once before and does not need to be added again (he so blatantly created a duplicate "TCM theory" section so this should be obvious). If he or anyone else has problems with the current version, they should address any changes that have been made since then and not reinsert material that may exist in edited for or be removed with explanation. --Jiang 08:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am concerned about Heidimo's "allies". Mr Natural Health [Refactoring out Personal Attack] who threatened me by claiming to be a Nazi, and as discussed on the Wiki-En list, [Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Mr-Natural-Health has a long history of [Refactoring out Personal Attack], and is currently [Refactoring out Personal Attack]. He also claims that [Refactoring out Personal Attack]. Please do not take my word for this; this is all verifiable. Jiang's unfounded criticisms against me also make him somewhat of a biased person as well. The point is this: A cadre of Wikipedians believe that any alternative medicine claim has to be accepted uncritically, and they view all mainstream scientific views as "vandalism" or "racism". They work hard to censor and delete all material that doesn't push their religious New-Age beliefs. Frankly, if we were to compare the recent Wikipedia article edits on this topic to real papers in peer-reviewed journals, our articles would look like a pro-New-Age religious tract, and it wouldbe laughed off as a joke. At this point in time, it still looks like they are trying to push their religious views and totally censor mainstream views. How do they justify pushing their beliefs? They merely add the sentence "This is not religious" to the nd of their religious beliefs! Frankly, I don't buy it. They can claim that these are not religious beliefs...and I can counter that having angels cure someone's cancer isn't religious as well. But such a claim is religious, no matter how much someone shouts otherwise. RK 14:42, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

A cadre of Wikipedians believe that any alternative medicine claim has to be accepted uncritically, and they view all mainstream scientific views as "vandalism" or "racism". Ha, ... Hah, Ha! I have never made a religious claim about alternative medicine, or any form there of. What I have found is that the medical scientism people have consistently violated the rules of controversial topic discussions. They make non-attributed assertions that are laced full of weaselspeak. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 16:24, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Special pleading is not allowed in Wikipedia

I have removed the following from the article:

One difficulty with scientific research of TCM is that the theoretical framework used by TCM practitioners does not easily map to Western medical concepts, making it difficult to judge the effectiveness of TCM theory with Western medical theory. The theory of TCM itself predates such analysis. Some TCM practitioners in the West assert that the elements of TCM are not amenable to scientific study. Other TCM practitioners believe that Chinese views of medicine can be reconciled with Western views of medicine, and that the energies and elements in TCM theory can be linked to scientifically observed biochemical processes. Little of this work has been fruitful so far, however. The topic is open to speculation.

The above analysis is not allowed in Wikipedia; this is a clear case of "special pleading", and as such is a gross violation of our NPOV policy. The above nonsense is simply a formal way of saying that "If you don't accept our religious beliefs, then you can't find any proof of their existence, therefore the problem must be with you". In any formal philosophy course special pleading is one of the first topics studied. It is a well known trick, but nothing more. The same exact same argument is often used by Christian fundamentalists to explain why atheists and heretics cannot understand why God and angels exists and intervene in the world, which they see as clear as day, while the rest of us do not find any physical proof. It is beneath us to include such childish arguments in a world-class encyclopedia. RK 14:53, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Use of terms like Energy, Force, and Religion

RK - one problem I'm having with some of your additions is the use of terms such as "energies" and "forces" to describe Qi and Yin & Yang. This confuses the issue, because I think the article elsewhere avoids these characterizations (even though most New Agers do not). Also, although I know what you are saying by describing TCM as a religious belief, I am not so sure that term is helpful. If the concepts of Qi and other elements come from religious beliefs and practices in ancient China, then that fact must be reported. But the fact that some, many, or all modern proponents of TCM now hold on to beliefs that are religious-like (i.e., beliefs, not subject to standard methods of proof) needs to be stated in a different way, because painting TCM with a "religious" label (in my atheistic mind) is too broadbrush and borders on inflammatory POV. By the same token, I do see your point about "Special Pleading" above and the relationship to religious claims - Marshman 17:21, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I went through your recent addition/change. Much of the "new" stuff you added is actually already said elsewhere in the article. The critical points you raise are not appropriate under History but need to go under the sections that relate to evaluation of TCM. I understand what you are getting at, but it is simply not balancing the article to repeat criticism of TCM under every subheading. For example, your statement: Until recently, observations of the results of TCM have not been subject to controled experiements or peer-review. is true and an important point to make; but it is simply inappropriate under History of TCM. - Marshman 17:49, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Clarify for Non Chinese

This article is a bit difficult to read. I'm not Chinese, so I can't read the labels on the jars in their medicine shops. Though I see things like dead animals in jars. What is that for? The American Cancer Society report on Chinese Meds did a better job because it stuck to the focus of a few herbs that are well known: ginger, soy, ect ect. If you are going to include something like a Dried Snake and Turtle picture, why not explain what that is for? Is a gecko the Chinese chicken soup for the cold?

My advice for this article is to start with the known herbs that have been studied. Keep out the things like dried snakes and turtles until it gets studied...

When I walk into a Chinese medicine shop it's a mystery, and when I leave it's still a mystery. This article feels much the same way. Fadedroots (talk) 06:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

I suggest we revert this article to the edit dated 02:19, 9 Apr 2004, by Jiang, as a preparation to bring the article up to standard for the Wikiproject on alternative medicine. Please comment. heidimo 03:15, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

If you have noticed, I have been able to deflect all the critics, right now, in alternative medicine for two reasons:

• I always use the correct magic words, and
• I keep on referring to our standards of quality guidelines.

To do what you want to do now, requires that you analyze what the wrong doer is doing wrong in terms of our standard of quality guidelines. And, then respond accordingly to the point without resorting to personal attacks. You are allowed to do two reverts a day, for ever ... the way I read it.

But, I will take a closer look and see if I can give you any more specific pointers. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 03:58, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

John, thanks for your comments. I'd be happy to follow all of those guidelines, and hold off on the revert I suggest until the proper time in the process, if at all. I'm only soliciting comments at this time, not saying if or when I would actually do such a revert. heidimo 04:08, 1 May 2004 (UTC) P.S. I added the infobox. heidimo 04:27, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I have got it now. I would advised against doing a revert, now, simply because you have waited too long and too many editors have made changes to it. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 04:35, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Hello folks. It seems to me a revert now would be less desirable than the inevitable rewrite, which is to say, if you're going to work on it, work on the finished product instead of a temporary patch.

I like and agree with John G's statement on strategy;

"I always use the correct magic words, and I keep on referring to our standards of quality guidelines."

A nice, neutral presentation of information will do the trick, one thinks. As the guidelines say: Wikipedia is not about advocacy or propaganda of any kind, what I would add to that is that Wikipedia is about information of every kind, apparently. People can be as skeptical as they want to be, but the phenomenon exists and the information is out there and it isn't going away any time soon. Just as many aspects of traditional Chinese medicine make perfect sense if they are explained well, there are also many abuses of the traditional Chinese system, especially in the West, and they should not be glossed over. To present information as clearly as possible so that people can make up their own minds is all we can hope for. Fire Star 22:57, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Precisely! The phenomenon exists. So, we have every right to cover it per our standards of quality quidelines which are direct quotes from existing and well established Wikipedia guidelines.

My accessment of TCM is that it is way too big. Much of the content should be moved to separate articles, with the main TCM article being an outline of what is contained in other articles. Beyond, improving comprehension of TCM to the general public at large this strategy would also deflect edit wars to the other more specific articles. Remember, that the same content would still be there. The details should simply be hidden in separate articles like all hyperlink documents are supposed to be designed. -- John Gohde, aka Mr-Natural-Health 17:45, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Single-paragraph summaries are a good way to go with this that avoids edit wars - David Gerard 19:19, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed and agreed. The Tai Chi Chuan article is a good example of this, a discipline with roots and branches in ancient and modern Chinese medical traditions, a page with lots of info, but little overlap with the actual Chinese medicine article. Fire Star 20:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Thinning the page

[1] As part of the wikiproject on alternative medicine, sections are being removed from this article on topics with their own article. Removed sections are being placed in the talk page of the respective articles, for merging purposes. Please help with the merging, if you are so inclined. heidimo 15:59, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi, heidimo. Please forgive me for my outrageous delay. I have some extra-Wiki commitments going on and on, and will come back with the long overdue comments Real Soon Now, promise! - irismeister 18:00, 2004 May 14 (UTC)

Preliminary review of TCM

My preliminary review of the TCM is very favorable. Again, the primary problem seems to be coming from the science people.

I am referring of course to the TCM and Science and Does it work? sections. These sections seems to be trying to duplicate the articles on the scientific method. My suggestion would be to simply add a hyperlink.

Does it work? As a reader, reading TCM for the first time, my response would be: What is it? And, what is it in reference to? Any reader, remotely familiar with science, would discount these sections as being totally mickey mouse. You cannot test for it, unless you have first defined what it is. And, then your conclusions about it would only be valid for a limited set of specific conditions which would probably mean specific medical conditions. Since, it is obviously referring to 100's of different things and since there are literally 1,000's of diseases the whole premise of this section is so fundamentally flawed that a sixth grader wouldn't believe it. -- John Gohde 20:46, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

= Jiang's reversions

Jiang, please stop your reversions. You need to stop pushing your religious beliefs as scientific facts. (You also need to stop denying that the belief in these forces was not religious; it was a religious belief, no matter what you claim, and these beliefs have no scientific validation.) Every time someone adds balance by merely presenting a scientific analysis of your claims, you revert the article. You often censor it by totally deleting all critical studies. That is a serious violation of Wikipedia NPOV policy. Its not just me that you have done this to; others too have suffered under your edits. Please know this - Wikipedia has a neutral point of view policy. When a controversial subject has a significant amount of mainstream criticism, we are obligated to present it. Instead of discussing the contoversy, you just keep on reverting and censoring, over and over. You did this a few months ago, and I am sad to see that you are doing it again, You must stop this inappropriate behaviour. RK 22:27, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

I submit that RK is the person who needs to stop his inappropriate behaviour. -- [[User:Mr-Natural-Health|John Gohde | Talk]] 22:36, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please read the article before posting. Like before, many of the sentences you re-inserted are already present in the article, word-for-word. Now explain why we need to repeat the same sentence twice (or if we havent reverted you a couple months ago, three times). If you insert new material, then we can discuss. If not, we revert. --Jiang 22:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In my view, it is a political viewpoint used to control the social role of TCM, to classify qi forces as religious. The purpose of the TCM page should not be to praise, deride, critique, or justify TCM. There are ample opportunities for all of those viewpoints to be expressed elsewhere.

well qi isn't scientific so how would you classify it?Geni 13:58, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's disengenius to say that "qi" isn't scientific. Different aspects of "qi" are the subject of scientific study today, in order to determine whether or not it exists, and if it exists, precisely what it is. I don't think it would be erronious to say that Traditional Chinese definitions of qi have not been adequately examined according to the rigors of Western Science, but simply claiming that it "isn't scientific" (and by extension, implying that it does not exist) is wrong. 64.60.67.98 (talk) 22:52, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The TCM page needs to represent the actual features of TCM with a balance of those topics that are of the greatest salience and importance in understanding TCM. It is an unreasonable imbalance in POV to have pages on western medicine which fail to represent the prominent criticisms of method and structure, while the TCM page dwells on critiques to the point of distraction. The page is not about controveries. Let controversies about TCM have a separate page, please.

Why? They are relivant to the topic. fialing to put them in would may the article very POVGeni 13:58, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Removed parenthetical (shen) after "observation of the patient's face". While shen is primarily diagnosed by facial observation, it can be observed in skin tone at other areas of the body. More significantly, observation of the face can be used to diagnose Lung, Kidney, Spleen, Liver, Qi, Blood, and Jue, not just Shen and Heart. Nick Argall

---

Obviously this article can do with some editing. For me some portions need verification. For example, who says Buddhism and Confucianism influenced TCM - I've never heard of it, where are the sources or explanation, for example? Excuse me while I do some very liberal copyediting, and add some fundamentals of TCM from Chinese webpages. Pls voice your opinion if the changes are not to your liking. Mandel 15:32, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Gone through the article. Some parts are very unclear. What has SARS got to do with TCM, for instance? And this: "It may surprise modern people that the Traditional Chinese Medicine uses medicine as the last resort to fight health problems....However, with modern practice of the Traditional Chinese Medicine relies more and more on medicine and eventually abandons the physical treatments (like Gua Sha) largely. Some people believe it is because medicine can bring more profits to doctors than simpler physical treatments." is neither accurate nor true. Mandel 17:28, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Agree - for such a broad subject overview it may not be able to go into detail for all topics. But the SARS section feels totally out of place as there doesn't seem to be any clear statement if TCM has any role in treating SARS or any clear statement on how banning livestock sales related to the practice of TCM. Without such a statement the SARS section should be removed. Nogwa July 15, 2005

中医学 vs 中药学

Hi, I noticed that 中医学 has a separate page from 中药学 on the Chinese Wikipedia; the Chinese one seems to indicate that the former is more general, while the latter refers to an almost scientific study of the foundations of Chinese medicine. It seems a bit strange that we just list both as definitions without further comment. Also, it is strange that one is in traditional characters while one is simplified - does English Wikipedia have a standard for included Chinese? Also, I added and corrected the pinyin for both and verified it on pin1yin1.com; hopefully I did it right. Capybara 07:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

zh.wikipedia is a separate entity from en.wikipedia, so you should ask the users there. As far as I know, they used to be divided into two camps, although software translation between Simplified and Traditional Chinese has resulted in the two merging. --Euniana/Talk 19:14, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

These names are not equivalents. Zhong yi-xue should pertain to the whole field of medical treatment, setting bones, immunization, etc., etc. Zhong yao-xue should pertain to (traditional) medications only. A person who practices Zhong yi uses Zhong yao (or cao3 yao4). I guess I should have a look at the relevant pages, but it would be a really strange use of language if the two names are taken to be synonyms. P0M 04:30, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

O.K. Just as I thought, the yi xue article is long and about the traditional practice of medicine, and the yao xue article is hardly more than a dictionary definition that says it is the botanicals, the animal parts, and that kind of thing that are used as medications in the traditional practice of Chinese medicine. P0M 04:34, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More page thinning

There were many redundant statements as well as biases favouring one school or another that I have edited out. I tried (albeit imperfectly) to keep all pertinent information while taking out New Age and any other species of POV doublespeak I could. I apologise for stepping on anyone's toes, but TCM is such a huge subject that I believe that this central article should give mostly just a very general overview, pro and con, while specifics can go on their respective articles. Fire Star 21:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ways to organize this subject of oriental medicine

By system: TCM, 5 elements, Korean hand, French Auricular, Japaneses, I Ching, others.

By History: Each step of the evolution of this medicine has been influenced by wars, emperors and famines.

By modality: acupuncture (each system puts the same points in different locations), tai qi, qi gung, moxabustion, tui na, acupressure, bleeding, purging, surgical (started about 1500 in China), sweating, cupping, gua sha, herbs and food, electrical, others

By system of diagnosis: yin yang, 5 element, 8 principles, zang fu, meridian, 6 divisions or 6 stages or 6 levels from the inner classic of the yellow emperor approximately 100 AD, 4 stages from discussion of warm diseases about 1667-1746. The 3 levels or 3 jiaos mostly from a systematic identification of febrile diseases 1758-1836. Modern diagnosis: this is not formal but in China diagnosis of acupuncture is being very heavily influenced by western diagnostic thought.

By book: Chinese Medicine has a very rich history of books. Many of these books are still used today in modern practices.

By school of thought often centered around a person and his great book or books. The Kidney school, The Spleen school, The 5 element school, the yin yang school, etc.

--Magic.crow 23:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Some off-topic comment

I cannot help laughing whenever I saw 'Does it work' section. Come on. It has been working in China for thousands of years already. I were personally treated by TCM for various internal and external problems and all worked. However, I admit TCM needs more scientific backup. Just my two cents.

Placebo has also been shown to work since it's been known to be around (thousands of years?). That doesn't mean that it's a valid, systematic methodology for solving health issues. --24.70.70.16 15:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Those who bashed on Chinese quackery just refuse to face the fact that Western quackery is practiced in the name of science. Isn't there enough pharmaceutical scandals in the news to show that when science falls in the hands of the businessmen like those at Merck, the population is poisoned by things like Vioxx. The Chinese quacks just lack the billions of dollars of legal fees. They are not much different. Kowloonese 02:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Quackery occurs when treatments are touted as being effective but are not. In this respect, Vioxx is not quack medicine; it's just BAD medicine. Scientists at Merck discovered the harmful effects of Vioxx in human trials prior to the approval but this was hushed up by senior officials in the company. As such, what Merck did with Vioxx, although dispicable and inexcusable, is a matter of inethical business practices, and not a matter of science. Most chinese treatments on the other hand, have not been tested through rigourous double-blind experiments but are rather based on tradition, hear-say, and possibly placebo effects.

Even many effective treatments in Chinese medicine are still not completely understood by both Chinese and Western medicine alike. For instance, a recent scientific study of accupucture reaffirmed its effectiveness, but showed that positive effects of the treatment can be duplicated by arbitrarily applying needles without the guidelines of accupucture meridians. So is the idea of "meridians" a quack concept? No one knows for sure, since so few studies have been focused on it. No one even knows what a meridian actually "is" in a factual sense, since no one has ever done a conclusive empirical studied on it.

The issue of efficacy and safety of traditional chinese medicine is a thorny issue at best. I personally think much of the "thorniness" has to do with cultural pride, since I also want Chinese medicine to "work". However, the understand of this system of medication is shoddy at best. As such the, differences between Chinese and Western medicine is not legal fees, lawyers and corporations, it is a matter of stringent empirical studies, which not only bring factual understanding but also decreases the incidences of quackary in medicine of ALL forms. -- Sjschen 19:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, this seems like a good place to put this because people like to debate about the science of TCM here. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning. They came up with their theories based on observations around them and then applied it to the human body. At any rate, when I read this article it made me wonder if the people who said Chinese medicine is unscientific have any notion of the scientific process. Most articles I read about Chinese medicine on Wikipedia have large sections devoted to the "effectiveness of TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and they go on at length about how certain people claim that TCM is unscientific. I think this is false and misleading. TCM is scientific. The Chinese utilized inductive reasoning to conclude things and then debated about it extensively amongst themselves and even performed clinical trials over thousands of years. Then they made theories based on their observations. They kept what worked clinically and elaborated or corrected it when needed. I think it is really absurd that people claim TCM is unscientific. It is like they're saying science is unscientific by completely dismissing the validity of inductive reasoning and the scientific process. And because every article (or almost every article) on Wikipedia devotes so much space to these false ideas, it reads as propaganda. (For references to my claims one can look at the comments in the Materia Medica by Dan Bensky, Steven Clavey, and Erich Stroger.) 24.69.176.48 (talk) 20:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Harkannin

Where is Five elements (Chinese) (??)!?

I think TCM is not TCM at all if there is no Five elements (Chinese) supporting it. Could anybody add a section for it, explaining the mapping between Five elements and internal organs, showing the special connection between eye and liver, how a symptom in head may a cause on feet etc?

The current content for theory part of TCM is not sufficient even from an amateur's view. --129.7.248.159 19:39, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Be bold! Put it in there. Just remember, If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. Fire Star 23:39, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

As I read this page and it's links I see a problem. Subjects like 5E and yin/yang have good pages already but they are not so good for TCM. Should we write almost duplicate pages or just link to pages that don't cover our subject so well? --Magic.crow 04:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The reader who wants to know about Chinese medicine may not be very well motivated to spend lots of time trying to absorb these other articles. Beyond that, the average reader would have no way to apply that information to Chinese medicine without some guidance.

The most interesting connection between the five "elements" and Chinese medicine is due to the five phases (as I prefer to call them) are phases of a single cycle just as the four seasons are phases of a year. In each day, a system of function (organ to us Westerners) can behave differently depending on which of the five phases it is in. Chinese medicine had an awareness that diseases behave differently at different times of the day, and that medicines can react with the body differently at different times of the day. In Western medicine we have only in the last few decades become aware of the importance of circadian cycles to the functioning of the human organism and to its reactions both to diseases and to medicines. P0M 23:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Moved from Uses section

"There are thousands of years of empirical knowledge about TCM on its own terms, and in recent decades there has been an effort to place traditional Chinese medicine on a firmer Western scientific empirical and methodological basis as well as efforts to integrate Chinese and Western medical traditions"

This does not make any sense to me. What does "...empirical knowledge about TCM on its own terms..." mean? I thought empiricism on nobodys terms but own? -- Sjschen 15:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

It might be possible to express that idea better. When Chinese doctors started trying to organize their experiences, started trying to figure out what works and what does not work, trying to figure out why certain procedures work better than others, etc., they did not necessarily use the medical terms used in the West. If they did use synonyms for Western terms, they were generally because all humans recognize, e.g., fingers. (They may conceptualize toes, or "foot fingers" as one of my karate brothers called them, differently, however.) As the two medical systems progressed, the conceptual systems both became more and more abstract. Western scholars were talking about things like matter, energy, change of light energy into chemical energy, changes of chemical energy into forces exerted by muscles, etc., etc. Chinese scholars were using concepts like "qi4" ?, "zhi2" ?, "li3" ??etc., etc.

If the Chinese doctor applies pressure to the he2 ku3 ?? point in the web of the thumb and the patient feels nausea, That report is remembered and/or recorded. The same thing happens over and over again. At some point an empirical generalization forms based on these repeated experiences. The generalization is "crystallized" in the form of the whole conceptual system of traditional Chinese medicine, and over the centuries the conceptual system has become more and more coherent.

The problem comes when Western doctors hear about this treatment and try to understand what is going on. Does it really work? If you pinched the patient's nose, would nausea and headach relief occur equally frequently? If it does work, how can Western medicine understand a connection between the nerves and muscles proximal to the thumb, the blood vessels in the temples, and the large intensine? Do nerves from these three areas "cross" at some point? Can it be chemical? If so, (1) how does it happen so fast, and (2) why don't the supposed chemicals affect the retina, the small intestine, the heart...?P0M 17:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

What has happened to our Chinese character (Unicode) input? Are we back to the old way of entering Chinese characters? P0M 17:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

They are reading fine for me, let me see... 一字師. Those were cut and pasted from my user page. Is it possibly a browser problem?--Fire Star 18:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I can see 一字師 "yi zi shi" but not 氣"qi4" 質"zhi2"理"li3" 3 paragraphs above. I see question marks where characters should be. Now the characters are showing up in preview, but let's see what happens when I actually save the page. I've been having lots of "session data lost" problems lately. It seems that the servers are overloaded again. P0M 18:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I seem to be able to fix things now. Probably it was the "loss of session data" that cause the problems. P0M 01:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to admit that I am a cynic at heart. First off, in order for a field to "be empirical", one has to remove any "unempirical" concepts in a field and put them through empirical testing before allowing them to be used. In that respect, what is the definition and proofs of 氣"qi4", 質"zhi2", and 理"li3"? Is "qi" something that can be tested and substantiated or is it just a loose mental concept like the western folk medicine "ether"? Sjschen 20:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

We observe things all of the time and subsume the observations under "scientific" (i.e., inter-subjective) categories. But that doesn't mean that the scientific terms refer to things that can be directly observed. Everybody experiences light. Humans have used light for as long as we have existed. But nobody has ever seen a photon. It's very much like the difference between seeing a bullet hole appear in the wall by your head and seeing the bullet in flight. We never see a photon, we see only the result. But we make theories about light, and they are scientific theories. They may not be "forever" theories, however. That is the way science progresses. Newton says that light consists of corpuscles. Somebody else comes along and shows that light fans out after it goes through a narrow opening, which bullets would never do, so light must be a wave. Light forms interference patterns, light forms colored zones on bubbles and on thin films of oil on puddles of water. So it must be a wave phenomenon. Finally we come down to the 20th century. Light is whatever it is, and we can describe it in human terms as particles or as waves, and either way we never get the job done. So we start with objective, empirical observations, and we formulate those empirical observations in terms of some model (e.g., light is a wave in ether). It's good enough to help us make excellent telescopes and microscopes. Huygens talks about "wavelets" that may have no bearing on what is going on in the microcosmos, but his model is good enough for making excellent optical instruments. The information that is encoded in that way doesn't get lost just because somebody uses a model that is later superseded.

Working back from theory, the basic meaning of li is pattern. (It goes all the way back to the 詩經　where it is a verb that means to lay out the fields in a human-designed pattern.) There are patterns or regularities in the human body, and both Chinese and Western medicine have things to say about these patterns. But if a Western person looks at a weiqi board s/he is likely to imagine that the stones go in the boxes rather than on the intersections of lines, and the way the Western doctor looks at the patterns in the human body may be subtley different from the way the Chinese doctor would characterize the same corpse or the same living body. 質 refers to what the Western doctor would refer to as the matter, the flesh and bones components of the human body. But the theoretical explanation given for what and why it is as it is are different. You can see a fairly clear exposition of 質 in the works of 朱熹，顏元　et. al. Western medicine has only recently become more interested in things like circadian rhythms, the dosing of certain medicines being appropriate at different levels depending on what part of the circadian cycle a patient is in, etc. Western medicine has tended to see the human body like an "exploded" diagram of an automobile. Western medicine examines the electrical system in one field, the motor in another field, the carbeurator in another field, the exhaust system in another field. If something goes wrong because of the train of interactions from the exploding gas in the engine on out to the point that exhaust exits the system, then the Western doctor may have problems seeing the problem. (Sorry for the rough analogy.) Western medicine can talk about energy, but it tends to compartmentalize energy into electrical energy, chemical energy, momentum, etc., etc. Chinese seems to collect all of its observations about these kinds of energy into one concept, 氣.

Let me propose an experiment based on something my 7th grade biology teacher taught us. He claimed that if one is about to sneeze that sneeze can be suppressed by exerting moderate pressure with a fingernail at the point where the cartilage at the end of one's nose joins the nose bone. I've tried it many times, and it seems to work. I've never been a second-story man, so I've never had to test it under "real life conditions," but it stands as a hypothesis with a fair amount of anecdotal evidence in my own experience. To test this hypothesis scientifically I guess we would have to get a number of volunteers and some sneezing power, and then test their ability to suppress sneezes with and without the use of the fingernail pressure. Assuming that we could prove that something is really going on, how would Western medicine explain the phenomenon? Probably some idea of "counter-irritation," which really isn't much of an explanation. In trying to make the explanation more clear, one might trace the nerves from that part of the nerve back to the brain and then watch what happens in the brain to modify the sneeze reflex. But as an empirical matter, what we start with are the people in the lab with the sneezing powder. That information isn't falsified by being hooked up with one or another theoretical explanation any more than the studies of the emission spectrums and the absorption spectrums of the various elements are altered or made less objective depending on whether what happens is explained in terms of a wave explanation of light, a corpuscle explanation of light, or a quantum mechanics explanation. P0M 23:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Huygens' theory of light is still very useful for making optical instruments, and that you can never directly observe a photon. But the point is that empirical studies are still being conducted as to gain further understanding into the nature of light. One tries to figure out what light "is", and what one thinks one knows about it has an empirical foundation. To my understanding, 氣 has not received the same degree so scrutiny. Sure the theory of light is not like you say, a "forever theory", but that what's important, namely with new knowledge comes new insight. Because there has never been any studies on what 氣 actually is or if the definition holds, there really is no new knowledge on it, whether it is true or false. Hence our current discussion.

I also agree that Western medicine tends to take the human body and treatment in too miniscue a perspective. This could be because research information comes is small pieces and linking them up to form a big pictures takes time, and then more time. But when the information is link together to form the big picture, you can be sure you have something more or less correct since there is very high confidence with the accuracy of each of the tiny pieces. With the concepts of TCM, one too often assumes the one has knowledge of the big picture, be it the human body or the car. Although one might get lots of treatments correct, many are often ineffective or even worsens a condition. I sometimes see TCM treaments as similar to someone jarring a computer to rid it of a buzzing sound; it may work, but you don't know exactly why.

As for applying fingernal pressure to inhibit sneezing, I've never tried it. Problem is that the "treatment" is based on (1)expert proclamation and (2)anecdotal evidence, both of which historically has a very good tendency to be wrong. This is why stringent empirical studies came about in the first place. As for how one might prove or disprove the efficacy or the mechanisms of the treatment, there are many methods possible. But even if we are to begin with as you said, "empirical matters", there are actually things more important than the test itself, namely, the controls that gives us certainty that the test is actually empirical and reproducible. For instance: Does the type of sneezing powder matter? Does knowledge of the treatment induce a placebo effect? Do temperatures and body conditions matter? Can applying pressure to the anywhere on the head work just as well?

I'm not saying that TCM is all false, as you so implieded. TCM has produced it share of important modern medicines and treatments (think inhalers). Problems is that TCM lacks examination under what I (and many others) consider to be unbiased and well-designed empirical studies. We can't go around stating that Chi run through meridians and that we will cure people by "redirecting it" when we don't even know what a meridian or what Chi is. No one has even been able to associate a meridian channel with any anatomical feature. Chi cannot even be measured or observed, we don't even know how it works. So how can we even say that metal needles can block or redirect Chi. In the legal world, I belive that's call fraud. If clinician have taken the "empirical" positions of TCM at the time of Louis Pasteur, we probably would still think spoilage and bacterial growth is due to energies and forces in the air. What TCM ultimately needs is "More Light"! ;) Sjschen 09:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Both acupuncture and acupressure have been proven scientifically, just because it hasn't been explained yet scientifically does not make it a fraud by definition. For example, the origin of the universe hasn't been proven scientifically, but that does not make the idea of the universe having an origin a fraud. Wiki wiki1 06:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Changes based on personal experience

Removed "The general distinction made by Chinese in China is that Western medicine involves cutting or acute care while Chinese medicine involves manipulation or chronic care. Hence medical procedures such as bone setting or chiropractic spinal manipulation would be seen as Chinese, while surgery tends to be seen as Western." and added more detail to same paragraph to more accurately represent my observations of Chinese medicine hospitals whilst in China in 2005. Piekarnia 22:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Please be aware that Wikipedia articles are not to report on or depend on personal research. They are to be backed up by material provided with citations to published, and preferably peer-reviewed, research. P0M 23:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Now rectified (hopefully up to standard)Piekarnia 12:06, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Lead section

Why would the reader assume that TCM would be scientific? Does every article on Wikipedia about a nonscientific topic need to have "though unscientific" inserted in its lead section? I think a better way to address this would be as in acupuncture article. -Jim Butler 23:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

(Well, looks like there isn't the consensus there that I thought there was, but we'll get there.)Jim Butler 05:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with you Jim. Modern readers seeing the word "medicine" would expect it to be scientific and efficacious. It's unlcear here what you mean by the acupunture reference. Mccready 17:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree Kevin. When most "modern people" hear the phrase "Traditional Chinese Medicine" they don't expect scientific trials to have even been completed - they think mystery and uncertainty. It's certainly the exception rather than the rule that people have even looked at any of the thousands of trials that have been conducted. I doubt that people would mistake the word "medicine" in Traditional Chinese Medicine for a scientific based medicine. The word "traditional" is certainly a giveaway, and "chinese" certainly makes it sound exotic or at least foreign. Nonetheless, I think the reword has removed all traces of ambiguity. For future reference, the word systematic means "based on a system". It neither means nor implies that TCM is a scientific system - particularly when in the same sentence the systems are named: yin-yang, five elements etc.Piekarnia 23:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Linkspam?

This user's only two contributions to wikipedia consist in placing this link California State Oriental Medical Association to a website in progress on the TCM page and acupuncture page. I'd rather see it removed at this stage, at least until their website is fixed. Mccready 06:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the acu discussion page, CSOMA is actually legit, so I think it should stay. It would be good, imo, if someone organized the links section as I did with acupuncture. Will try to get to that. thx,Jim Butler 05:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Taking a liberty

I've taken the liberty to delete the macro section. If anyone objects we can put it back in when the problems are ironed out. My reasons are that it:

1. makes untrue generalisations about TCM (eg artimisinine doesn't fit this description)
2. makes unsourced comments on other forms of medicine
3. makes POV comments about "natural"
4. is unsourced
5. poorly written

This seems like a drastic step but it would take so much work to improve it, I've decided on this route. Please feel free to object. Mccready 06:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

You won't hear me objecting. Agree, it was a mess, and whatever was of value in that section should be rewritten from the ground up. I would if I had the time. Anyway, good call. Jim Butler 05:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I STRONGLY object. Deleting the whole section IS a DRASTIC step. In that sense, many articles in wikipedia should also be deleted totally. The spirit of Wiki is not deleting when you see something not good, but incrementally improving it if you can! Therefore I put it back. Please be polite to contributions from others: improve it or leave it alone. For the case of artimisinine , I already put most diseases at the very first sentence. NO generalisations can cover ALL cases. --Leo 00:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete or improve

Hi Leo, Jim and I, from almost polar opposite ends of the spectrum on attitudes to TCM, both agree that this should be deleted temporarily. If you wish please feel free to improve it before replacing. I'm happy to give some further input into why it's not acceptable in its present form. Please understand that we would welcome the section back but it needs to be rewritten first. WP policy is that if material is deleted because it is unsourced then it stays deleted until sources are provided. I look forward to some cooperative editing on this piece. cheers, Kevin Mccready 00:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I also think deleting is a drastic step, however also think that the macro section needs considerable improvement. Perhaps the section should remain until someone has agreed to rewrite it. Sjschen 05:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes it's a drastic step, but one that is supported by wikipedia policy. The material isn't lost. Anyone can retrieve it from the history and work on it. I wouldn't be happy reinserting substandard material. Mccready 08:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, since this section was put back into the article, I rewrote it to be more NPOV, and merged some parts with other sections. I don't know if it's a particularly accurate description of TCM, but I don't really have any expertise on the matter. -- Beland 03:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Perfect! Thanks a lot. You grabbed the essence of what I wrote!! --Leo 19:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Empirical knowledge

The claim that "There are thousands of years of empirical knowledge [neutrality disputed] about TCM conceptualized and recorded in terms appropriate to that system" implies that all claims advanced by TCM are true. This is disputed in some cases. A NPOV replacement could be to differentiate between claimes which are generally accepted as true, versus those that are still being evaluated. -- Beland 22:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

TCM model of the body

I am unable to reconcile TCM model of the body with the contents of this article. That article proceeds as if there is one, universally accepted model, but this article seems to indicate that there are multiple theoretical systems. It would be nice if this article contained examples of diagnoses, and that article explained the various theoretical systems. -- Beland 02:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

"Uses" section:

• "It has also been used to treat antibiotic-resistant infection." This implies "successfully", but that is a very strong claim, which should be referenced, if true.

"TCM theory" section:

• What is meant by "Received TCM"?

"Received TCM" refers to the body of Chinese medical practice, both as an oral tradition and as represented in various medical texts, prior to the system's codification by the Chinese government in the 1950s. However, there's no reason to use that term in this context, and the sentence should probably be clarified.

Soft helion 23:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• "Chinese academics of various schools" - It would be helpful to have some by name.
• shen is a disambiguation page that points back here; perhaps there is room for a separate article explaining the concept of spirit/soul/mind specifically with regard to Chinese philosophy. It seems like it could be an interesting topic.

It would be an interesting article. It's also one part of a rather large discussion involving a dozen or more pairs of terms. Shen is the stuff that evolves from jing and means "spirit", but only in the sense used in, e.g., "My, you're in good spirits today." (By "evolves" I mean to "come out of" a liquid or solid the way some gas evolves from a mixture of chemicals heated in a test tube.) In one of the commenataries to the Dao De Jing it says: "If your shen does not roam about, your semen will not ejaculate." (Shen bu you, jing bu xie.) There are also "spirits" that are more like our idea of souls, the hun and the po, which also form a pair, one being the earthy spirit that sinks to the Yellow Springs at death, and the other being the heavenly spirit that rises up to the sky at death. Writers speak with great confidence about these entities in limited contexts, but there doesn't seem to be a "grand theory of everything" that draws them together in a clear relationship. To ask for such an account might be like asking a pre-modern person to explain how the conscience relates to the five humours. P0M 04:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

"Treatment techniques"

• What treatments are possible using Chinese astrology??

I'm not sure what the original writer had in mind. Although they got their time periods in an arbitrary way that, to me, seem unlikely to have any real validity, it may be that some doctors thought that which treatment or which dosage might be appropriate could depend on the positions of the planets in relationship to each other. In my view that would be an overgeneralization from a valid observation that western medicine is only recently taking into account -- circadian rhythms. The appropriate dosage of a drug can vary according to the hour of the day. Knowing that could be important in cases when there are big penalties for not getting the dose right since the dose that would just barely get the job done at 10 a.m. might be enough to make somebody sick at 10 p.m. (That's probably too dramatic, but you get the idea.) Anyway, that's just an idea of what kinds of connections to look for. P0M 04:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• "Such practice of bone-setting is not common in the West." Bone setting (in casts) is quite common. What is it that this statement is trying to say is not common in the West?

Here I think the problem is just that the writer has not been clear. I think I remember hearing just recently that evidence of set bones and healed fractures had been found in prehistoric sites. The question is how one is to protect the bone after it is set. We most often use plaster of paris. The cast is not only heavy, but usually (always?) makes the patient's skin under the cast become very itchy. The traditional Chinese practice, as it was explained to me back in the 60s, is to put some kind of traditional ointment on the skin surrounding the break, then wrap the area with lengths of cloth tape (rather like the tapes that bosers use to wrap their hands and wrists before the gloves go on, I should think), and finally some kind of splint material is taped on the outside (most likely split bamboo or wood). The patient sees the doctor occssionally while waiting for the bone to set. The doctor will unwrap everything, check the alignment, etc., put on a new covering of ointment, and zip everything up again. On the other hand, the original writer may have had something entirely different in mind. P0M 04:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

-- Beland 03:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Beland's work

Hi Belend, Looks like generally a good approach. A couple of points. 1. The capitalisation of western in the victorian govt quote shouldn't have happened - if it's a quote then it needs to be exactly what they wrote. They used lower case so the quote should be in lowercase. If you really feel the need to do so you can put in a (sic), but I don't think this needs it. 2. You are also asking questions about stuff which Jim and I agreed should be deleted and properly sourced before being replaced. Some stuff has been replaced which is not properly sourced. I'd prefer it be taken out unless it can be sourced. It appears to be rather florid OR to begin with. Keep up the good work. I liked Pearle but my computer science friends wouldn't be happy to call it AI :-) Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to do as you see fit. On other controversial Chinese cultural articles, we have had problems with people adding and removing large chunks of text of disputed veracity and neutrality. Since that has already started happening here, I would recommend justifying any removals on a point-by-point basis, so that people intending to revert the change will have food for thought, and will have something specific to reply to if they feel the removal was unjustified. For people not familiar with the subject (like me), it is unclear which portions are unreferenced but generally accepted as true, and which are unreferenced and shaky. Putting clear citations to referenced sources from the portions of the article which are well supported would help with that. But personally I have no objections to removing anything you think is wrong or which qualifies as original research. -- Beland 19:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Note to editors - monthly statement

I edit lots of stuff which deserves the label pseudoscience, perhaps not the case here, and want to alert you to my editing principles lest I be accused of too rapidly reverting. Have a look at my userpage and please make comments if you wish. Happy editing. Mccready 04:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

TCM and Internet

I guess my writing has some problems. So, I put a copy here in case somebody will delete it. Please refine it if you are interested in this piece of information. The key words here are: online web sites providing FREE herb prescriptions, having some positive results already. Unfortunatedly, all of them are in Chinese so far.

With the popularity of Internet, increasing number of TCM doctors are seeking new approaches to diagnose and treat diseases using remote, non-contact methods, mostly by filling online symptom questionaires and uploading the photos of tongues. Some TCM advocates even established web sites like Folks TCM to provide free herb prescriptions to patients having Internet access. Doctors and patients can actively exchange information about symptoms, prescriptions and feedbacks via Bulletin Board System there. While limited by remote diagnosis methods, some positive cases (including cancer, diabetes,leukaemia etc) have been reported on these websites.

--Leo 17:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the section "TCM and the Internet" as it violates wikipedia's spam policy. As I mention below, if you believe that the existence of these websites represents an event of historical significance, you need to provide a link to a reputable source.Soft helion 23:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Seahorse reference

The following article provides the needed information on sea horses and thier shrinking populations due to TCM. I do not know why people insist on reverting this, as 'citation needed' means 'go find an article relevant' which I have done. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/vincent.html --168.56.111.83 16:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Dried Deer Penis?

Do we really need this picture in here? Aren't there plenty of other great images that represent tcm besides dead sea horses, penises and some random photo of some store isle in HongKong? --Travisthurston 23:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see it being a bad thing. Besides, TCM is hard to capture in pictures due to the wide variety of disperate sub-disciplines that the term covers. Do you have any suggestions of images? Sjschen 01:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Deer penis seems like a bad choice to me. Would prefer an interior shot of a serious traditional pharmacy, for example. Viande hachée 15:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The text on the this image is in Japanese. Why would a Chinese pharmaceutical shop use Japanese? Hanfresco 17:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

These images should be removed, since their labels are Japanese. Look carefully, and you'll see the yen sign. bibliomaniac15 04:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

So is anyone gonna obtain new pictures? I will if no one does in say, a month. Funny thing is the Chinese wiki also uses these pictures.. Hanfresco 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The penis pix and the seahorse pix appear to come from the same pharmacy. The seahorse pix indicate they were taken in a Chinese shop in Yokohama. The Japanese text may be there because the phonetic spelling of the English "penis" is more acceptable to customers than the straightforward version. (I once asked my family doctor what "anus pruritus" meant and got a very old English definition. It wouldn't have been acceptable for a magazine article or a TV advertisement, but it was accurate.)

The appearance of sympathetic magic in Chinese medicine is one indication that it is in some ways neither scientific nor grounded in anything other than a kind of wishful thinking. The use of the penis pictures may be justified as "truth in advertising." P0M 03:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree your concern. I removed the links to the images. --Leo 14:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

"Heat"

Shouldn't this article describe "heat," "cold," "dampness," etc., as they relate to TCM? This seems a serious omission. Badagnani 02:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

This posting was made last year and this does need to be addressed! Badagnani 04:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Still needs to be addressed! Badagnani 22:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

"Liu hairuo"

I know this is unrelated to the article, but does anyone know anything about her? She is mentioned several times as a prominant example of the effectiveness of TCM, but I cannot find much information about her, aside from that she was involved with an accident, and she was alledgedly curred by TCM 128.250.87.22 08:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I googled her name in Chinese. I did not find too much help from TCM for her as far as I know. --Leo 06:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

West came to China in the 1930s!?!?

During the early 1900's, CCM developed the notion of germ theory: either oral- or food-borne pathogens. Concurrently, the West was also developing the same notion with the invention of the microscope, which provided proof of germs (bacteria) existing in food or in body fluids (mucus from a sneeze, for example). The West came to China along with the microscope in the 1930's, proving both theories valid.

Errr, "the West came to China in the 1930s"?!?! I can't even begin to express how dissapointed I am that this piece of misinformation has lasted through even one edit check. Anyone with a 6th grade education should have been suspicious. China had trade, both intellectual and commercial, long before the 1900s. And the germ-theory of disease was not developed in the 1900s, it was almost universally established and applied in the 1800s and was actually being developed in the 1700s (and was talked about long before that).

I'm not saying anything about whether or not CCM developed germ-theory independently. But this whole paragraph is of suspect veracity due to the glaring innacuracies that surround that contention. I'm deleting it. If you put the parts that might be true, such as the independent development of germ-theory, then put it back with a cite. But please keep the "the West came to China in the 1930s" bit out--its downright silly. Brentt 19:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent multiple edits by one new congtributor

Someone more familar with this field than I should carefully go over the new content added by Spiritprimer. S/he appears to have "signed" the new stuff with the URL of a commercial site. I'm tempted to revert the whole thing, but there may be something of value in it.

While looking at the most recent edits I also noticed that the English grammar in the article is poor. P0M 05:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know enough to evaluate them, but I've tagged the additions with citation tags to assist other more knowledgable editors to find them. A Ramachandran 06:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Spiritprimer's contributions are spam. The paragraph added to the end of the "Branches" section is non sequitur. The only support offered for the assertion that the Jingfang school is experiencing a comeback is the existence of the two websites that Spiritprimer is promoting. If those websites represent a phenomenon of historical importance, then this claim should be backed up by an outside source, not a link to the websites themselves. Moreover, the websites are in Chinese and are of no use to readers of the English wikipedia.Soft helion 23:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Article in need of major cleanup

The recent additions to this article all seem to be advancing the agendas of individuals, and seem to have been added by people who did not read the entire article. If the information in these newer edits is to be retained, the sections themselves ("TCM and the Internet," "Branches," etc.) need to be merged into the history section. More importantly, the numerous unsourced statements added to this article seem to support minority positions.

The section about "CCM" and TCM needs to be reconciled with the rest of the article. First of all, it should be established that the term CCM is in general use, and not just by this Jeffrey Yuen person. Also, those two paragraphs should be merged with the "uses" section below, which contains many of the same pieces of information. Soft helion 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

General style and structure

Lack of detail

If more details are added, then the entire article needs to first be simplified (or hyperlinks should be applied). This article is disorganized and WAY TOO LONG. June 24, 2010

The article has been written by a lamer, who does actually know anything about TCM. He just draws general conclusions. The article needs detailed prescriptions and explanations of real procedures. Btw, this applies to most of the Wikipedia. Teemu Ruskeepää 16:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Historical Documentation

HuangDiNeiJing source-work for early Chinese medicine exists as textus receptus only from the 11th Century, C.E. Mythic tradition dates it to 26 or so centuries B.C.E. Consensus among scientific historians, East and West, is that it was collected from preexistant fragments in 1st Century B.C.E., or later. Tomb finds from the 3rd to 2nd Centuries B.C.E. reveal only fragmentary similarities. The historical evidence doesn't support the now popular claim that the book was substantially from the Warring States period. Source: Paul Unschuld's books, esp. the recent volume on the SuWen. Signed Cjmacie 05:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Wenbing is supposed to be Wáng Bīng (王冰) Mugwumpjism 12:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Seahorses and their effect

I've found a page in relation to the use of seahorses in TCM. Perhaps someone would be able to sum up the information on this page, [2]? I am unsure in whether some information about the effects of the seahorse in TCM is valid in this article or another listing all the various ingredients should be created. Thank, Aeryck89 18:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

licensing bodies

isn't it a good idea to mention the training TCM doctors and the procedure of obtaining licenses in certain countries, e.g. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan? Avis12 18:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The question of efficacy

Cleaned up this section for readability and content. Fixed the link/quote from the 1997 NIH consensus, clarified conclusions of Cochrane/Bandolier reviews. Tried to edit for a more 'neutral' tone.Splendide 00:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

---

It is too bad that this section in this article has the phrase "TCM treatments are based on their apparent basis in magical thinking". This point of view is neither cited or explained and the phrase itself makes the article have a non-nuetrual point of view. From "The channels of Acupuncture" by Giovanni Maciocia, TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials. Sept, 13, '07 --Harkannin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.113.13 (talk) 23:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

---

"...TCM is based on deductive and inductive reasoning with thousands of years of clinical trials."

Ah, the appeal to antiquity. IIRC, we used to burn people who disagreed with our world view and kill left-handers. It's a good thing we've changed and started demanding double-blind placebo controlled studies and peer review. Which, unfortunately, prove a lot of TCM to be based on "magical thinking." I'd be delighted to read of well constructed research which proves otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.152.245 (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

If you can call what TCM does "thousands of years of clinical trials", then urine therapy and Witch doctoring might just as easily count. Jeanpetr (talk) 00:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

removal of 'Mechanism of action'

Removed text: The basic mechanism of TCM is akin to treating the body as a black box, recording and classifying changes and observations of the patient using a traditional philosophy. In contrast to many alternative and complementary medicines such as homeopathy, practically all techniques of TCM have explanations for why they may be more effective than a placebo, which Western medicine can find plausible. Most doctors of Western medicine would not find implausible claims that qigong preserves health by encouraging relaxation and movement, that acupuncture relieves pain by stimulating the production of neurotransmitters, or that Chinese herbal medicines may contain powerful biochemical agents. However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts.

This is a personal opinion piece. Phrases like 'which Western medicine can find plausible', and 'Most doctors... would not find implausible' are unsubstantiated (and questionable) assertions. And the passage 'However, the largest barriers to describing the mechanisms of TCM in scientific terms are the difference of language and lack of research. TCM concepts such as qi and yin and yang are used to describe specific biological processes but are difficult to translate into scientific terms. Some research is now beginning to emerge explaining possible scientific mechanisms behind these TCM concepts' begs questions of scientific evidence and efficacy of TCM practices. This doesn't really belong under the 'Scientific view' heading; perhaps parts of it can be integrated elsewhere in the article.Splendide 05:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

merging of "Uses" and "Macro approach to disease" content

Merged relevant content in to other sections, removed redundant content, and performed general article editing for readability. Criticisms of Western medicine belong under "Scientific view" or "Relationship with Western Medicine". This article has a long way to go; there are still too many unreferenced assertions, and a lot of redundant content.Splendide 18:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Opposition

I have no problem with having an Opposition section. What I find misleading is this claim:

"Starting from late 19th century, politicians and Chinese scholars with background in Western medicine have been trying to phase out TCM totally in China. Some of the prominent advocates of the elimination of TCM include:..."

The section goes on to list POLITICIANS/WRITERS and SOCIAL THEORISTS. Who in their own respective biographies list hardly any experience in Western medicine. While the quote does mention that these are politicians and scholars. I find the entire section misleading (as it is already unsourced) and irrelevant. I propose Refocusing it toward either Western medical experts or known Chinese doctors (Western medicine) voicing opposition would be more effective. I find it disturbing on why we should care that a politician with hardly any background in either Traditional Chinese Medicine (or Western Medicine for that matter) voices an opinion against Traditional Chinese Medicine. Selfexiled 09:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Thank you. Jim Butler^(talk) 00:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

In the Intro

It says that TCM developed "over several hundred thousand years". Someone having a laugh? Otherwise the timeline further on is severly lacking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.190.147 (talk) 12:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So it does, removed hundred. If you've got some good sources, feel free to improve timeline. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 22:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Classic Chinese medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine

It would be nice if someone could make a clera distinction between TCM and CCM in this article. I dont know why your guys so emphasize at these two words, actual, as a pharmacy worker, i dont know the different of it. and i couldn't find any clear different in your word.

maybe you think Mao Zedong hate Classic Chinese Medicine? why? even medical could be a political tool to anti Mao Zedong? you think Mao is a idiot?

Yes, recent years(after Mao), someone try to reform TCM to based on modern science, but they failed, now, researcher acknowledged, TCM is TCM, it couldn't base on western medical theory. this is not a political movement, it's just a matter of scinece and philosophy.

In TCM school, ancient medical book is still a important part of study, many researchers write report based on ancient medical book. No one try to forbidden ancient Chinese medical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.95.5.81 (talk) 00:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest to remove the sentence: However, Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) is notably different from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). CCM represents the medicine and its evolution through thousands of years.

It seems that the sentence on so-called "CCM" has already been removed. But whoever proposed it was trying to point to a difference between modern TCM and Chinese medicine in the past, when it represented much more than what we now mean by "TCM." The term "CCM" is not widely established, so it's probably not very useful. But I think it's crucial to distinguish modern TCM from the history of Chinese medicine. Of the current six paragraphs of the section called "Ancient (classical) TCM history," only two are on history, and only one of these two cites studies by historians. The entire article is actually about TCM as a form of alternative medicine, not as something that has a history. I really think there should be a new Wiki called "Chinese medicine (History)" where the voluminous scholarship on Chinese medical history could be discussed. --Madalibi (talk) 10:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Pathology

This article is missing a critical peice of the theory. Not only does TCm differ in how it describes the body, it differs in how it defines the nature of disease. User:Badagnani has been complaining about this for years apprently, and they've got a point. Someone needs to step up and write a blurb about what it means when TCM adherents talk about "cold," "heat," "wind," "damp," etc. This information is important as hell to this topic and should be made a priority by the folks that regularly contribute to this article. --Shaggorama (talk) 12:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

It may involve pseudoscientific claims by modern day quacks, but the topic as a whole isn't any more "pseudoscience" than Aristotelism or Alchemy: it's a historical tradition, or perhaps protoscience. --dab (𒁳) 15:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Some editors are unfamiliar with WP:PSCI, which says when we should and shouldn't use that category. (I removed it.) --Jim Butler (t) 00:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Modern TCM History rewrite

Added a rewrite tag to this section. The section reads like it came out of a translator bot. I read it 5 times now and still don't get what it is saying. Content may be ok (I can't tell) but it needs to be aligned with 21st century English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.234.0.2 (talk) 07:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The entire paragraph is illegible (typical translator bot junk), and all the Bold types should be removed. The part on the "fractal dimension" of many concepts of Chinese medicine has an original here in the Chinese wiki on TCM. In addition to being unclear even in the original, this wiki presents recent "conceptual research" on TCM as if it were an accepted view. It's actually a marginal and little-known re-interpretation of some basic TCM concepts, and therefore shouldn't belong in the "History" section. The so-called "discoveries of Deng Yu" are actually his personal interpretations. Properly translated, the entire paragraph would open with platitudes on the development of TCM starting in the 1950s ("great strides," merging with "Western medicine," increased investments, etc.), followed by the recent conceptual interpretation just mentioned. This would not be a well-structured paragraph, and would still lack any kind of reference. Not sure it's worth spending time rewriting it.--Madalibi (talk) 08:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Added rewrite tags to the two sub-sections under "Modern History List." They seem to have been written by the same person (bot?), and they are equally illegible.--Madalibi (talk) 01:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I see that Wee_Jimmy erased the problematic paragraph. This was probably the best solution.--Madalibi (talk) 04:10, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

"Fractal channel" has references link "The traditional life of the first World Congress", Asian medicine (J), october 1996 (first world tradition life study congress)., link of Chinese paper http://www.chinaschool.org/sgzy/computer/03-0905_jl.htm . Zhang Shenghong "gap dimension" of Quasi-Fractal dimension (Science & Technology Review (Beijing), 1996; Nature exploration, 1997), that was non-fractal gap dimension, their gap dimension=0.3?

Chinese fractal set, Journal of Mathematical medicine, 1999.

Chinese "Modern History List" look link [[3]] . souce

--dalaody (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

On my reasons for commenting out section 10/31/08

This is English Wikipedia. As such, any topics discussed here should be understandable by the average English-speaking reader who is not familiar with the topic. Well, the section I commented out is absolutely NOT understandable to an average (or above-average!) English-speaker unfamiliar with the concepts of TCM. (What is a newcomer to TCM to make of "*Li Dexin: The Qi was material and the function unification Lysenkoism" ??? I could substitute "Shannon Hoon: The eggplant and the overarching bucket of marble drumsticks mozzarella" and it would make precisely as much sense to the uninitiated.) What is needed here is admittedly going to be difficult to find: an editor fluent in English and Chinese, who also has the requisite knowledge to summarize and explain these concepts of TCM in a brief, comprehensible manner. Til that particular superhero arrives, however, this section is going to stay commmented out, for the good of the article. Thank you. Gladys J Cortez 07:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

In-line citations

There is something a little bit "off" with the in-line citations -- not merely a matter of format regularity, but also something askew in the relationship between the text and its presumptive support material. In the process of tweaking in-line citations, my primary goal was to create external links to to an on-line version of the source; and at best, I hoped to identify a link to the pages being referenced. At the same time, I was checking in a superficial manner to see how the gist of article text and the reference sources might -- or might not -- match, e.g., in the "Ancient (classical) TCM history" section

In his Bencao Tujing ('Illustrated Pharmacopoeia'), the scholar-official Su Song (1020–1101) not only systematically categorized herbs and minerals according to their pharmaceutical uses, but he also took an interest in zoology.

Tentative revised citations:

• Wu Jing-nuan. (2005). An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica, p. 5.
• Needham, Joseph. (1959). Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth (Science and Civilization in China, Vol. III), pp. 645, 648-649.
• Needham, Joseph, ed. (1989). Botany (Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1) Botany ... in a version identified as being published in Taipei by Caves Books Ltd. three years before Cambridge edition was first published -- in 1986 at pp. 174-175?
• Schafer, Edward H. "Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition," Journal of the American Oriental Society (Volume 75, Number 2, 1955): 73–89.

The system's development has, over its history, been analysed both skeptically and extensively, and the practice and development of it has waxed and waned over the centuries and cultures through which it has travelled - yet the system has still survived thus far.

Tentative revised citations:

• Needham, Joseph et al. (2002) Celestial Lancets, pp.69-170, 262-302.

It is true that the focus from the beginning has been on pragmatism, not necessarily understanding of the mechanisms of the actions - and that this has hindered its modern acceptance in the West. This, despite that there were times such as the early 18th century when "acupuncture and moxa were a matter of course in polite European society"

Tentative revised citations:

• Needham, Celestial Lancets, p. 296.

These small changes in the citations might be helpful? --Tenmei (talk) 01:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Links to relevant english language schools for TCM

At some point, I found this page very helpful for finding TCM schools around the US. Now I find this list is gone. Does anyone mind if I recreate it? Or, better yet, add an external link to a source that already has this? thanks Admiralblur (talk) 08:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but I think it would be much better to insert a link than to add this kind of content to the wiki. Reason: this should be an encyclopedic article, not a place where TCM advocates and practitioners come to find insider's information. Cheers,--Madalibi (talk) 10:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for clean-up and copy-editing

Hi everyone. I just added tags requesting a clean-up and improved copyediting. Why the article needs editing:

• It is full of well-meaning but still POV language from advocates of TCM, mixed with equally POV critiques of TCM from the point of view of "Classical Chinese medicine."
• The structure is egregious: for example, the sections called Medicine overview and Treatment have the same content with different words; same problem with TCM basic theory and Model of the body. These sections should not be allowed to develop in parallel.
• The language is a mix of English and something else I can’t understand.
• Many links in the "Timeline" and most links in "Modern TCM basic theory" don't exist.
• The historical roots of TCM are either poorly explained, or simply asserted on the basis of some editors’ imagination. We have statements like "Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party toppled the Qing Dynatsy Imperial rule" (which I erased yesterday) and "Since 1200 BC, Chinese academics of various schools have focused on the observable natural laws of the universe." Etc. There are actually excellent scholarly books on Chinese medical history. Among many others, I strongly recommend Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China - Plurality and Synthesis, by Volker Scheid, a TCM practitioner who turned anthropologist and historian. It's based on both fieldwork and textual studies, and it explains the emergence of modern "TCM" very well.
• Whatever sounds more balanced and encyclopedic is almost completely unreferenced. A rare exception is the beginning of the section called Scientific view.

I will start working on the article myself in early December, but I will keep an eye on it until then. Cheers, --Madalibi (talk) 02:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Start Over

I only recently took a look, but this article is a mess. It needs to be completely rewritten by an actual TCM Doctor or medical historian. Some suggestions:

• Main article detailing known history, basic theory, and modern practice in China and the rest of the world.
• Other articles describing various theories and concepts in more detail (5 Elements, Zangfu, The 5 Pathogens and 6 Environmental Factors, 6 Channel Theory, etc.), including links to the articles on Acupuncture, Tui Na, Moxibustion, Cupping, etc.
• Measures against opinionated vandals.

Pbfpfoss (talk) 02:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

western medicine?

In the section about TCM's relationship with western medicin the term western should be changed to something more appropriate or left out altogether because:

1.there is only one medicine which is a holistic science of healing the people with different subcategories (among which CTM would not fall).

2. it implies that chinese traditional medicine is also medicine or a subcategory of it which it isn't because it falls more in to the category of pseudoscience. Though may or may not be efficient and even share some aspects and views on the human body with real medicine.

3. it would imply that it is something that belongs to the west which it doesn't since no one can claim a science for himself

4. it simply does not show properly what we are talking about (is it medicine as practiced in the west? to my knowledge it is practiced just the same everywhere)

Therefore it should be replaced by something like conventional medicine, scientific or evidence-based medicine (as opposed to chinese traditional). Rokpok (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest removing "Western", and wikilinking the first occurrence of medicine in the section. Verbal chat 16:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Relation with Western Med

Ariedartin's tag was correct, so I moved it down to the section needing attention. As pointed out above, the section title is not really appropriate. The section also seems to consist mostly of OR with a strong slant in favor of TCM. Beach drifter (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

CCM vs. TCM: proposals for solving the current content fork

Hello everyone,
I just posted a message on the talk page of the wiki on Classical Chinese medicine, in which I propose a simple solution to the current POV fork and content fork between so-called "TCM" (traditional Chinese medicine) and "CCM" (classical Chinese medicine). I propose the following modifications:

• Change the title of the current wiki to the simple and neutral "Chinese medicine." The advantage of this title is that it can accommodate TCM and CCM, as well as medicine as it was practiced in China before the 20th century.
• Work toward the following structure:

1. A solid historical section
2. An explanation of the modernization of Chinese medicine in 20th-century China, especially after 1950 (these are the reforms that led to the formation of what we now call TCM); mention somewhere that "TCM" is a quasi official translation of the Chinese term "Zhongyi" 中医/中醫, which means "Chinese medicine."
3. A presentation of the main tenets and practices of "TCM" (since TCM is more mainstream and has more secondary literature on it)
4. A shorter section explaining that some people working under the banner of "CCM" disagree with "TCM" approaches and claim they want to return to some more authentic precepts and practices. This section will resonate with section 1, on the history of Chinese medicine.
   
5. Scientific view, etc.

This simple structure (1. complex history; 2. 20th-century reforms and institutionalization; 3. current TCM precepts; 4. CCM protests) under a neutral title like "Chinese medicine" would help to present a more historically accurate picture of the development of Chinese medicine, and would get rid of the current "POV fork' and "content fork" between TCM and CCM. Any suggestions?
Madalibi (talk) 06:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Amusing paper

I don't think this is suitable for the article (too minor paper), but when I was reading on structure learning in Bayesian networks today, I bumped into this paper and was much amused: Statistical Validation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Theories (apparently published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine). Might be amusing (and good) reading for someone else too, so I'm mentioning it here.

This paper was written by people who certainly know their statistics, but my guess is that they aren't TCM experts (just guessing from the fact that they also published a similar paper in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series). They applied learning latent tree models to some TCM data sets and (quite cursorily) looked at whether the structure matches what TCM says. They "found that the resulting statistical model matches the relevant TCM theory well". Essentially there was some latent variable and conditional dependencies that matched with some yin-yang explanatiomajig or whatever. IMO it's an interesting (and a good) approach, but the data set is way too small, making it something of a proof of concept. -- Coffee2theorems (talk) 20:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary sentence

‘’Supporters of TCM say that this functional approach makes it possible to treat the entire mind and body, rather than one or the other.‘’Sounds like unnecessary POV to me. I'd rather leave this sentence out.Mallexikon (talk) 08:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Alright, since no one seems to object, I'll just delete it. Mallexikon (talk) 06:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Makeover

I'll try to streamline the text a little in order to make it more accessible. This will mean I'll have to delete some sentences (there's overabundance of irrelevant/redundant information here). Comments are welcome. Mallexikon (talk) 06:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Theory section

Streamlining the lead and history sections wasn't so hard as there are plenty of useful facts there that mainly had to be re-arranged a little. I'm moving to the ‘’theory‘’ section now and this seems much harder. At the present it contains:

• a pointless hint at the buddhist/daoist/confucianist roots of tcm
• a hint at the I Ching which also doesn't seem to say anything of substance
• a very long quote from Porkert which I can hardly understand and which seems to mainly be apologetic in nature (regarding the conflict with western science)
• an overview of Shen Nong's Herbal Classic (???)
• a short chapter about lingzhi mushrooms (???)

I recommend deleting this whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon (talk) 09:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Delete theory section

Alright, since no one seems to object, I'll delete this section now. Mallexikon (talk) 02:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Commented-out section

Resolved

I went through the commented-out section regarding post-50s new developments in tcm. None of the discoveries mentioned here did have any effect on the system of tcm (to my knowledge). The only exception might be the development of ear acupuncture by Nogier. Then again, ear acupuncture doesn't have anything to do with meridians, qi etc. but is based solely on the theory of reflex zones. I know a lot of chinese acupuncturist do use ear acupuncture, but since the whole theory is not anchored in the tcm system, I recommend to delete the whole section. Please comment. Mallexikon (talk) 08:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. Mallexikon (talk) 05:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

large revert

Ok, Hk, that last series of edits was out to lunch. Intentionally skewing the material to disparage the subject matter is not acceptable for an encyclopedia. You knew these edits were contentious, and you powered through on them anyway; go slower, discuss more, be less POV about the whole thing, otherwise this is just going to deteriorate into a fight. I don't want that, do you? --Ludwigs2 18:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

My edits were made in good faith.

I did not make any contentious edits.

I added "citation needed" tags all over the article for controversial statements that I was unfamiliar with.

I added common facts of practice, that TCM most largely sells snake oil, ginseng, and crushed bones, horns, teeth, tusks, and antlers.

I only removed unsupported NRS stuff if it was highly POV.

I did not do a large revert.

Why is that contentious?

Ludwigs2, almost all of your talk page remarks that I have read have been extremely and very specifically well reasoned, and were a refreshing change from other POVs on the talk pages, except this last one about these edits being "contentious", and "out to lunch". HkFnsNGA (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... alright, my apologies. I think a bit of a headache is making me unnecessarily grumpy this morning. I'll strike the comments if you would like.

What got me about that last series of edits is that most of them involved one of the following:

• the introduction of minor material as though it were of primary significance, to make the subject look silly (e.g., the introduction into the lead of material about chinese rivers and calendars [4] which is a minor, archaic historical point, not a major defining claim of TCM) --Ludwigs2 19:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

12 rivers and 365 days is not "minor". It is the cornerstone both of TCM theory and scientific criticism. This should be in the lede since it is the basis of scientific criticism. HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• a shift from a neutral or TCM-POV phrasing to a western-POV phrasing, to make TCM look more dangerous or unsavory than it is (e.g.[5] and [6] --Ludwigs2 19:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I deleted two false and completely unsources sentences POV sentences like "adverse events are extremely rare especially when compared to other medical interventions", which says that TCM has less adverse events than science based medicine, without RS. The sentence should not be in the article. HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• wp:PEACOCKing western science material ('science' to 'established science' to 'well-established science' - what's next in this progression? 'superior science'? 'god-like science'?) --Ludwigs2 19:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not Peacock. There are highly established sciences like human anatomy and human physiology, and less well established science, like oversold surgical intervention, or highly marketed pharmeceuticals that barely pass test review for worthwhile effect, like some antidepressants, or Rogaine, which does solmething but just barely. HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You seem to me to be engaged in an effort to impose a science-POV on the article at the expense of clear and accurate information about the topic, and that's not acceptable. --Ludwigs2 19:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I am trying to impose an objective and neutral POV in good faith, and RS in this highly nonRS article (at least before I put more in. You even reverted the meticulous "citation needed" tags I meticulously put on NRS sentences asserting facts unknnown to me, which I had no source to check, one by one. I only deleted a small handful of the completely NRS sentences that I believed to be flat out false.HkFnsNGA (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Regarding non good faith pro-scince POV effort you claim I am engaged in, I am engagged in an effort to describe traditional Chinese medicine (substance) and Medicine (practice and theory) commonly encountered in grocery stores in almost every country in the world, and give RS. I happen to think that medicines such as snake oil, gienseng, and tiger's penis are bunkum, and endangering rare species and putting people out of real medical care, but I am not editing with POV, as you can see by looking at the article, with RS now in most of the beginning parts. You have almost always (as far as I have seen) been meticulous in well reasoned arguments of substance, without ever resorting to name calling to make a point. In fact, I WP;bolded in many of your comments at various talk pages. I suggest we both spend out time improving the article. You, in particular, might be of greater help in linking theory to actual specific Chinese medicines. This link is not made at all in the article as I found it. My best friend happens to be from Gansu province, and keeps insisting I use traditional Chinese medicine, for example, when I got a sore throat. I actually knew nothing of the subject then, and put the foul tasting brew in my mouth. Another of my best friends is Korean, and she gave me highly priced "special" Ginseng for Xmas. I came to the Wikipeida article and found nothing about these things. That was long ago. I am finally doing somjething that I should have done way back when I first found the article to be practically useless, in that it did not help me gain practicle knowledge about these medicines at all. HkFnsNGA (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't asserting bad faith, just (possibly) an over-identification with a particular viewpoint. some of TCM is snake-oil-like, but unlike true snake oil (which was usually little more than flavored brandy with herbs tossed in with little or no rationale), TCM has a consistent system based on an established set of theories and practices. it's primitive, it has flaws from the perspective of western medicine, but it's not a half-bad system if you find yourself without access to western medicine. For instance, your Gansu friend probably gave you yinchiao (assuming she bought it over the counter). I'm guessing that because in the chinese system (f I remember correctly) a sore throat represents excess heat (a yang state) in the lung system, and the herbs in yinchiao are designed to cool (yin state) the body as a whole and the lungs in particular, shifting the yang state off to other organ systems. That might mean something on a biochemical level (herbs containing chemicals that stimulate of soothe particular organs, the way that bicarbonate reduces acid in the stomach and vinegar stimuaates it), but it's really just a rubric. Of course, yinchiao is over-the-counter; and herbalist would mix you a blend based on a more detailed look at your symptoms

I could try linking up the medicines to their theory, except (a) I only have casual knowledge of the material, and (b) I'd be worried that making too strong a link would start to look like advocacy. but let me take a look at it and give it some thought. --Ludwigs2 22:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Its not advocacy if its RS and explains what qi has to do with using tiger's penis to treat impotence because (which is really because tigers are fierce, so their penis is to be desired to make the patients penis fierce. HkFnsNGA (talk) 22:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

- Safety section material

I restored this material, which was the only RS material in the Safety section lede. -

TCM has been found to have adverse effects. TCM herbs may contain toxins.

Is there any reason not to include it in this science criticism section? HkFnsNGA (talk) 22:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to look over the sources given, but stated baldly like that that seems unbalanced. Some TCM practices may have adverse effects; Some TCM medicinals may contain toxins. surely not all (or even a major proportion) do. One could say the same about any medical practice - most prescription drugs contain toxins; many western medical practices can have adverse effects in some circumstances. No reliable source that I have seen has ever tried to build a case that TCM is inherently dangerous - there's just no data to support it. At worst, opponents argue that it carries some mild risks with little potential benefit. Either your sources are fringe, or you are misreading them, because what you are saying does not reflect a mainstream understanding of TCM as far as I can see. --Ludwigs2 01:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I NPOV reworded this in the second lede paragraph. PPdd (talk) 21:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

POV

HkFnsNGA, you got my full sympathies for trying to warn against the dangers that come with TCM. However, this is an encyclopedia, and it should be neutral in tone. Trying to lace every bit of information about tcm with a warning is not neutral. Please try to look at this from a mere cultural-anthropologic point of view: we have to try to give the reader a detailed picture of this ancient medicine. I'm not saying the medicine is of any use (in my experience, it's not). It's definetely not scientific. Then again, the shamanism of Siberian tribes isn't, either - it still has to get its place in an encyclopedia.
I tried to structure the criticism you voiced in the appropriate section. I think it needs more structuring, more material, and more citations - maybe you can help with that? But please stay within the given organizational structure. In medicine, we stick to a strict system of overview / history / theory / diagnosis / treatment. I think it's best if we apply it in this article as well.
This article is still a stub. It still needs a lot of work, especially the "concept of disease", "diagnosis", "therapy" and "efficacy" sections. Any help is greatly appreciated - particularly if it comes from scientific minded users. Mallexikon (talk) 09:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Mallexicon, I'm not sure I'm liking all of your changes. for example, your revisions to the lead really mucked up the reading flow - it reads like bullet points now, not like an encyclopedia entry - and also changed some things that I disagree with (you removed the statement about the model of the body, located the origins in China even though the practice predates the unification of China, and etc). do you have an objection to my reverting some of your changes? --Ludwigs2 18:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Mallexikon's very simple statement of the criticism section is good.
• Ludwigs2's plain English lede content on different model was also good.
• Putting Traditional Chinese medicine (the article's title) in a subsection on side effect in a criticism section is not appropriate. Theses medicines belong up front for laypersons, as they are so central to use. They describe what is actually practiced in a way that is NPOV, in that there is total agreement between TCM and science based medicine on this, and it is the way that TCM is best known worldwide (no one really needs to know details of the 12 rivers theory or yin yang theory who is prescribed or regularly uses a medicine like Gensing). I also think a science based medicine article should include antibiotics, vaccines, germ theory, and viruses up front (e.g., re antibiotics, and their overprescription), since it is central. PPdd (talk) 19:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I am going back in and inserting Mallexikon's other, more specific, good edits. PPdd (talk) 19:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

PPdd: This problem with your heavy-handed edits is not that they have no merit. The problem is that you so obviously have an agenda here and are misrepresenting TCM in addition to misleading readers away from the basic plot points and into the rare and sensational "Tiger Penis" which is not promoted by any of the 55 TCM colleges in the US. Please do some more research and work on a more objective writing style. Zoopeda (talk) 00:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, tiger's penis was already in the TCM article when I came to it, and was about the best sourced content in the article, so I did not really touch this RS'd content. While it has stopped being promoted, it is still about the most widely known TCM medicine, because of all the press coverage. Now if you will excuse me, I am about to have a sip of tea made with human placenta, lead, mercury, arsenic, asbestos, and strychnine, because I have to wash down the raw flying squirrel feces I just chewed up. (I own a business in Shanghai, and I actually have had to drink some of these mystery mix teas, in politeness, and of all times, when I was sick! You haven't tasted anything yet if you have not done so yet.) PPdd (talk) 05:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Overall Neutrality Dispute

Dear All,

I logged on to read about TCM today, and this page is in desperate need of some moderation. It reads like it's been written by someone with a personal vendetta against Traditional Chinese Medicine! I'm a western person and see MDs like the rest of us, but these articles are supposed to teach objectively, providing a balanced portrayal of a subject. Instead, every paragraph follows with statements attacking the credibility of TCM or bringing up controversial issues that may or may not be true (because they don't have citations), and re-using old stereotypes that everyone knows are not true (ie, "Snake Oil" isn't even used by TCM practitioners, according to my acupuncturist!)

Anyway, my problem isn't just that things aren't cited. The big problem here is that even the things that ARE cited are simply very slanted or misleading, highlighting only one side of controversial issues that, ultimately, really only ought to be in ONE of the later sections of the article. Why doesn't this article begin like a history book, explaining the origins and practices of the medicine, rather than begin with attacks on whether or not TCM holds up to scientific rigor, etc? For example, why would the oldest and the planet's single largest medical system contain these sentences in the INTRODUCTION (!) (one being in the first paragraph!): "TCM is subject to criticism regarding a number of issues," "It uses metaphysical principles that have no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it", "...found to be ineffective...contain dangerous toxins," "ineffective medicines" etc? These things may or may not be true--this is beside the point. They're just extremely biased, and I, furthermore, challenge the neutrality and organization of this article.

Finally, how is it that 7 of the 8 photos on this page are of grotesque or controversial animal substances yet some basic internet research reveals that the VAST majority of substances used in TCM practice today are simple PLANTS (most of which seem to also be native to north American traditions). Obviously there are also some definite controversies that should be mentioned, in this article, but that ought to be put in a section to deal with skepticism and criticisms. This article is just so very misleading in layout and organization. It seems odd that the medicine that lasted 3,000 years of practice (something you don't learn reading this article) would have endured all the cultural and political invasions it did if this article were representative of its merits. I'm not asking for a pro-TCM page, but let's seriously organize this thing like adults...

New to wikipedia talk, please advise, Zoop Zoopeda (talk) 00:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Zoopeda (talk) 00:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

If someting has no source, then you can delete it using this guideline WP:Bold. I, for one, will back you up, and then try to find a source if I think it likely has one. Before you bash snake oil (which is still widely used in China, accoring to my Chinese friend and former busines partner in China), you should check this Scinetific American article - Snake Oil Salesmen Were on to Something:Snake oil really is a cure for what ails you, if that happens to be arthritis, heart disease or maybe even depression[7]. PPdd (talk) 00:58, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact that something is available readily in China does not mean it is considered an appropriate treatment by eatablished TCM universities. ie- Just because American stores sell penis pumps and American doctors preform breast augmentation surgeries doesn't mean that American Medicine IS entirely made up of ridiculous elective procedures. (When you view the medicine page, certainly the horrors of western drug side effects and drug resistant hospital bacterias and crooked doctors that sleep with anesthetized patients certainly do comprise the article!) Secondly, I would trust the experienced licensed TCM doctor I spoke with about this topic before I trusted your friend in China. Either way, the ultimate point is that snake oil and tiger penis and toxic herbs consume this webpage while most TCM treatments (the vast majority) do not include such treatments. It's not that snake oil doesn't exist; it's that it's extremely misleading to highlight this ludicrous side of the medicine when it's such a small minority in terms of practice. This is why wikipedia can never become a reliable source for controversial topics. Whichever side has more free time will dominate the page and swing it way out to one side of the picture. Sad story...71.237.181.49 (talk) 05:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Entering the discussion briefly to note that I have reverted IP 71.237.181.49's two most recent edits to the article, which removed much wheat along with chaff (e.g., NIH and Lancet citations). Rivertorch (talk) 05:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Although the edits were heavy handed, I've gone and changed the last sentence of the first paragraph because the most reliable footnote to support that statement (ie, the NIH study just mentioned above) actually concludes that "promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program" (and obviously not the claim that TCM has "no correlates in science based medicine, and would generally be rejected by it."). Zoopeda (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Abuse of POV tag

A {{POV-statement}} tag was added to this sentence I wrote - "Those that have been scientifically analyzed have sometimes been found to be ineffective, have sometimes made contributions to science-based pharmacology, and sometimes have been found to contain dangerous toxins."

I.e., sometimes nothing, sometimes good, and sometimes bad. Why is this POV? PPdd (talk) 01:33, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Feasibility of placebo controlled studies

The article says: “Western medicine documents the efficacy of its pharmaceuticals through controlled, double blind experiments. Yet this is rarely applicable to TCM. It is impossible to create an effective placebo for acupuncture, for example.” – this is completely wrong and also directly contradicted by other passages in the article which cite such placebo-controlled studies using sham needling. Furthermore, the way in which that review by Ernst et al. is cited suggests a conclusion which is actually quite the opposite of what the review found: namely, that most applications of acupuncture (with some notable exceptions) are ineffective. The article makes it sound as though the opposite were true. The sentence stating that clinical studies cannot test the efficacy of combination treatments (taking multiple herbs at the same time) is also wrong. At most such studies are more complex than studies for a single factor, but by no means are they impossible.--94.223.90.171 (talk) 11:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, "impossible" is wrong wording (I didn't put that in, and overlooked it in my reading of the article), "difficult and sometimes unethical" might be better. I am working on some other articles right now, but I will come back and fix that today, if someone else does not before. More relevant to your assertions is that the article needs to be fixed all over per the to-do list at the top of this talk page, in which case most of your "points" would vanish ("Meridians are no more real than the Greenich Meridian" - Mann; "I see nothing" - Alice in Wonderland; "You must have good eyes" - Cheshire Cat), e.g., since "acupuncture" is often used to mean "nonTCM acupuncture", which you just called "sham treatment". The most recent systematic reviews seem to concluded that nonpenetrating sham treatment is as effective as acupuncture, for at least one specific point, as RS cited in the article. Please suggest alternative wording that consistent with the MEDRS in the article, and which does not have ambiguities. PPdd (talk) 15:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Boldness, WP:Burden, WP:RS re use of Chinese language sources

Dear PPdd, the guideline WP:Bold is not meant to encourage users to go around and delete material they think is not sourced - please read it again. "In wikipedia, you don't have to cite that the sky is blue" and that is for good reason. Regarding my Chinese citations, I'll try to find additional English source where possible. However, English sources are not as reliable - there's a lot of misunderstanding and wrong translations going around. Mallexikon (talk) 06:57, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with the "use common sense" approach to WP policies and guidelines, and I am currently arguing to make this explicit here[8], by explicitly putting the Doctrine of Absurdity in WP:Policies and guidelines. Your comment on this would be welcomed here[9].
• I actually like your edits, and think they should be in the article, and I have been working on finding WP:RS to insert them in a way that they cannot be deleted or removed again.
• I did not use WP:Bold to delete; I used WP:Burden, which says

  "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page.".

• I tried to delete everything that did not have RS from the TCM article, suig MERS or RS, whether or not it was critical or TCM, supported TCM, or was just desriptive of TCM. I did the same thing at anthroposophical medicine, where I deleted everything without RS (causing yells and screams from all POVs). Then I gradually put things back in with RS that could be verified online by any editor. Since I did this, not a single editor has made any changes to it except spelling corrections[10], so it is now stable, and I got these unsolicited comments from both sides [11], and then this[22neutrality]. Anthroposophical medicine is explicitly based on the same concepts as TCM.
• Regarding "the sky is blue", TCM is not so obvious as that. And the sky is not blue. The sky right now appears where I am to be shades of gray, and last evening it appeared to be stunning shades of yellow to red. It often appears blue after dawn and before twilight, and this has to do with quantum chemistry. Blue light is absorbed and scattered more than red light by the molecules that happen to dominate the atmosphere on earth, but this is not on other planets. The reason the sky appears red at sunset, and not blue, is that light has to pass through more atmosphere when it grazes the atmosphere at twilight, similar to how Leonardo da Vinci showed distance in art by having more distant objects more hazy, as more atmosphere has to be passed through. The proportion of red to blue light reaching the eyes at midday is less than that at twilight, so the unclouded sky appears blue at midday, and red at twilight. PPdd (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

• • • Well, you actually did write WP:Bold (please check your comment from Feb-12). But with WP:Burden it's just the same - it doesn't give you any excuse to just delete material you think is not sourced enough (or in the right language). The correct (and polite) way of dealing with material you perceive as unsourced is to tag it and give reasonable time to find a source (unless it's harmful) - when I came back from a 10-day holiday all my edits were suddenly gone, so I don't consider this reasonable time.
    • Regarding the Chinese citations - I know that English citations are preferable, and I'll try harder to find them.
    • Regarding what you wrote on my talk page ("If you continue to ignore WP:BURDEN and revert my edits, I will report to the RS violation alerts, and you will be in violation of 3RR and get banned") - please refrain from threatening me. Let's keep this civil. By the way, thanks for liking my edits. Mallexikon (talk) 07:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Theoretical superstructure

Resolved

PPdd please stop deleting this material again and again. I added lots of citations (all English), even though the level of citation was already fine. Please remember that a citation can refer to a whole chapter, not just one sentence. If you have any specific objections, let's talk about it. Mallexikon (talk) 01:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Note that here[12], here[13], and here[14], I put the content at talk and made a call for others to help me find RS, since I could not find any. I got yelled at for doing this, because it is not standard practice to put posts at talk with content in it, and I was told to move it to my own userspace, but I kept it on this talk page. This is not required by any policy or guideling, but if you could add quotes from the sources in the ref citation, or find online citations, it would make it much less likely to be deleted ever again by anyone, and would be helpful to the readers unfamiliar with this theoretcial stuff (like me). PPdd (talk) 05:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

History

Working on the history section I came across the information that the Huangdi Neijing "states that to be a master physician, one must master the use of metaphors as they apply to medicine and the body". That's fascinating (and well sourced), but - as far as I can see - it's also insignificant. Would the editor who wrote this mind if I deleted it? Mallexikon (talk) 09:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

It probably is significant, but needs a secondary source to explain why, which is lacking. When I was trying to move unsourced things out of the article and onto talk to call out for finding sources, I left that one in the article. You are correct in failing to see significance, given the lack of an interpreteive text. HOwever, I suggest that if you delete it, that you move it here to talk for others who might know of an interpretive secondary source. PPdd (talk) 12:31, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Page needs complete overhaul on style/editorship.

Hi, there are two glaring unacceptable practices here that I would like to point out.

1) All listed items should be in a stylistic order (alphabetically, chronologically, etc.) but the orders are inconsistent. I have edited the herbal medicine section in alphabetical order (even that is mostly unacceptable). The use of scientific names for plants would be best but it may render it inconvenient for pedestrian access as a reference.

2) The article fails to present full view of the subjection, so far there are more negative, efficacy comments cited online that fails to represent fully the complexity of the topic. To present proper reference material, the coverage should cover all aspects. As a page written on religion by mostly Christians would fail to represent the full diversity of religious attitudes in the world. The examples given are woefully minimal, 5000 years of medical history has been reduced to 10 examples per section. Some of these research are designed to test only one herb. The essence of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the use of a combination of herbs and proteins blended together in various amounts in order to induce a bodily reaction in the patient that may help them treat their condition. I would to present an analogy: the pathogenicity of cholera, Vibrio cholerae is the pathogenic cause of cholera, one of the most devastating diseases in human history. We cannot eradicate this bacteria easily because other species of the Vibrio family harbor pieces of the pathogenic gene and may transform themselves genetically into Vibrio cholera after bacterial conjugation with other species of the Vibrio family, hence any eradication targeting V. cholera tends to fail but eradication of the Vibrio family would cause a high level of environmental upset and resource cost. The point of this example is to say that one single strain of bacteria can be non-pathogenic, harmless, impotent, but a few strains of them together with the right genes can cause a disease that has killed millions and still is killing people today, please reference the Haitian disaster outbreak for the latest issues. Chinese medicine works in similar fashion except for the benefit of people, a combination of herbs and proteins/toxins/etc. must be used in order to active their effectiveness. This is something that Western science has failed to comprehend fully and is just now beginning to realize and medical professionals are starting to use these herbs in complement with normal allopathic treatments. Not all Chinese medicine is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some are known to be quite toxic, pointless, and wasteful. Those arise from ancient traditions and times and should be documented as such alongside what is useful, harmless, or helpful. Some of the practice of using animal parts such as the placenta is used today in a variation. In the most common use of the placenta is used to make hair conditioner for thinning or dull hair, the placenta used in this case is cow or sheep in Chinese Medicine. Western medicine has adopted this practice and now uses it for various purposes also including asthma, obesity, et cetera, please see Alternative Uses for Placenta, not the least of which, stem cell technology. Chinese medicine's modern use of animal parts from threatened and endangered species is a condemnable act. These concepts were derived from the ancient times and the belief in them is rooted without any scientific proof. Even if there were benefits (I do not claim there are any at all, I do not believe there are any at all.), because these animals are endangered and threatened then alternatives to these should be sought. Many Chinese remain ignorant and there is a movement amongst some more famous Chinese Celebrities, such as Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, et cetera who are appearing in public announcements in China to reduce the consumption/popularity of such medicinal items in China. I believe that Wikipedia is a tool to educate and transfer ideas and should allow readers to come to their own conclusions with FULL inclusion of all information regarding the topic instead of only a partial glimpse.

I am currently an allopathic medical student who has worked in the past translating Chinese medical research documents for a year working on the latest Chinese medical/scientific research regarding medications for a multi-million dollar biotechnology firm that invests/advises on patents for US investors. One of my parents is an Eastern pharmacist and has taught me the basics of pharmaceutical herbalism in Traditional Chinese Medicine, I hold 4 degrees in Biology, Microbiology, Chemistry, and English along with minors in Biotechnology, Genetics, and Physics. I give these two opinions as a past research reporter and and someone who has sat on the fence between Western views and Eastern medicine for a long time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kytica (talk • contribs) 10:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Don't forget to "sign" your comments on that talk page. (Put four tildas " ~~~~ " at the end of it and the process is automated.) Then your name will not be microscopic at the end of the comment.
• The article will gradually creep back and forth between seeming toi havge to many negative things, to too many positive things, and back over time. WP:Wikipedia is not finished.
• The previous ordering was roughly done by how widespread the knowledge is in the west, e.g., snake oil is likely the most commonly known animal product, and genseng the most commonly known plant product, tiger's penis is widely known of because of all of the coverage on nature shows and magazines, etc. That's the way it was roughly ordered before, while an alphabetical list looks bad and WP:Wikipedia is not a directory may apply.
• Its may initially be easier to find "negativish" results because, e.g., findings of the presence of a toxin in a chemistry lab is relatviely easy compared to doing a human study on subtle efficacy, so google scholar will likely turn up more hits for this kind of finding. The situation will gradually correct itself; I recommend reading WP:Wikipedia is not finished, which was recommended to me.
• Since you are new, I am going to try not to correct your edits for a bit, so you get to try doing so as a learning experience. Others did this for me and it was a valuable learning experience.
• Your point about mixing the medicines is good and needs to be addressed. (There are photos at right about this, but little or no content.) It can go naturally in a second to last subsection of the beginning section, after minerals and before pills and powders. But reliable sources (RS) will be needed first. PPdd (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you for pointing that out, I'll shall try to remember to sign my posts.
• It's insufficiently written, lacks sufficient citation. In my opinion it requires more expert review. Ongoing issue.
• I do not believe that is true. The most commonly known animal products are horn products, not snake oil, because even today horn products sell at multimillion dollar shipments to Asia and Europe. New Zealands is one of the largest horn exporting countries due to their raising of venison for European consumption and the by-product for deer horn for Asia. Please see Agriculture_in_New_Zealand#Pastoral_farming. Ginseng is not, ginger is, also along with cilantro, cinnamon, star anise and other spices. These were medicines first then used for flavoring. Star anise is used as a primary resource for the production of tamiflu. Tiger's penis is a PETA inspired pop article, while true, the preferred animal is actually bull penis and it's used in many Asian, typically Southern Asian cuisines as a restorative dish. These cultures also tend to worship bulls/waterbuffalo in ancient times and believed it will grand them powers by eating these animal parts similar to early Western religion concept of sacrificial animals. So allow me to clarify, these lists are based on nothing and are pointless for easy access to the material, alphabetical lists are are not bad, I prefer (for plant discussion) to list plants by alphabetical scientific names so that they're better documented, however, it's harder to access for readability for anyone who does not have familiarity with scientific documentation hence why I am not choosing to list by those scientific names and instead by common names but that is open for discussion.
• No Comment
• Thanks, I'm still working things out.
• Is an ongoing issue with me, I am working on producing satisfactory documentation. Kytica (talk) 13:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not very Familiar with Chinese medicine personally so if I may ask if I were to become interested in TCM and start reading about it how would the most common and widely available sources on TCM refer to plants used in TCM? I ask because you may know what Epimedium is and you may know it as horny coat weed as well but it would be inconvenient to "pedestrians" who knew what Horny goat weed but not Epimedium. Most people who know scientific names of plants also know their scientific counter part. It's not uncommon to do so in encyclopedias.70.15.191.119 (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Common names are best in the plain English article, and binomial names (scientific names) should be in parentheses. In botany articles, the opposite is true/ PPdd (talk) 18:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Penis to penis; Tongue to penis - Dangerous practices

• "Penis cures penis" - In TCM, impotence is treated with tiger's penis, which is but one of many nutty examples that should be up front in the article body. The snake-oilish supertitious quackery of TCM that is really going on is utterly masked in this article by a POV focus on TCM "theory" and not the many specific examples of the nutty things actually practiced every day. The article is written with almost only "theory", and from a POV perspective of "veneration and respect for acupuncture's age", masking the supertitious nonsense that is really practiced day to day.
• "Penis cures penis" and the enormous number of other similar facts, which would make TCM immediately look preposterous to anyone with a minimal science education, should be in the article body up front, with the supertitious justification "theory" left for later. There should be many more examples of what TCM is in practice.
• "Tongue to penis" - The article does not go into body maps on the tongue, e.g., how the tongue is believed to relate to the penis, and other specifics or what is really practiced. Here is an example of what TCM really is, as practiced. My uneducated friend insited on going to a senior and venerable TCM "doctor" from China, who looked at her tongue and told her she was not pregnant. She was, and she had to have a full abortion, instead of just taking a morning after pill like she would have if not for her tongue. The article says the tongue, hair, etc. is examined, and nothing is said of why, as if real medicine were being practiced. Reading this article, without any specific examples of the absurdities derived from the "theory", one is left with the impression that TCM is respectable and more than just hocus pocus nonsense.
• There are few specific examples of the numerological things that TCM is based on, and how they are connected to qi, and how this is related to specific practices of herbal treatments. TCM comes out of a theory based on the body having structure based on there being 365 days in a year (there are not). The tongue (not the brain) has a map of the body is false, a fact not even indirectly stated in the article. Why is there so little about the tongue and other absurdities of TCM? It looks like the article has been scrubbed, so TCM will not look kooky.
• The dangerous' nature of this "number of days and rivers - to tongue - to penis - to penis" nature of TCM is glossed over. People go to TCM doctors with dangerous but easily treated bacterial infections, and leave with the infections untreated weeks or months later. HkFnsNGA (talk) 16:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There are a couple of pages containing giant lists of remedies; last I checked, they were poorly maintained and quite confusingly organized. Fixing that would be a great way to add to the accessibility of human knowledge - go for it. If you want to add a comparison of TCM to sympathetic magic to the article, you are going to need a really solid source. With an already lengthy high level article, the bar set by WP:UNDUE is pretty stringent. A lot of the medical literature takes it as given that the traditional explanation is a fable, and never bothers to mention its lack of explanatory or predictive power. You might try to find a sociology source, though; always, of course, keep in mind that the goal in tracking down better sources is to provide a more accurate summary of the topic, not merely to find something published somewhere to support what you want to write anyway. If I may be permitted a moment of hubris, there is some good advice on sourcing and summarizing at the WP:SCIRS essay. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I was actually wondering what penis cures penis has to do with "qi" and all the other metaphysical ideas. I read the article, and still have no idea what TCM is. How and where do the 12 rivers of the Chinese empire come in to locating meridians? Is the penis cures penis example just a coincidence, or does it come from sympathetic magic style reasoing, and how prevealent is the reasoning? My suspicion is that what is really going on is being masked because it is so snake-oilish, but there is no way to tell about how quackery laden TCM is since the article makes it look like something might be going on. I can't really fix it because I am ignorant about it except for a few isolated things, and I don't really want to spend time researching a bunch of hocus pocus. I might as well read some book on the humors from Europe 400 years ago. The article needs to be improved by a non-TCM scientist with knowledge about TCM. HkFnsNGA (talk) 07:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• After practicing in both the US and China for nearly 20 years I have never seen impotence treated with tiger penis, nor have I ever even seen tiger parts available. They were banned in China in 1993 and are illegal for international trade. To suggest that this is day to day practice is utterly false.
• Licensed practitioners of Chinese medicine actually get a significant amount of biomedical training. This statement is obviously written by someone with absolutely no knowledge of the field, just look at any curriculum of any accredited school.
• This is ridiculous! This quack likely is not licensed and is no better than the biomedicine doctors that filled my mom full of drugs for 8 months for something that I resolved in 2 weeks with Chinese medicine. There is NO connection between the tongue and penis in Chinese medicine! The tongue is used to confirm information, most frequently about the digestion. - (The preceding comments were unsigned by User:Tgarran)

Tgarran, please sign your comments and don't break up other editors' comments. Otherwise there is no way to tell who is commenting and who is responding. Thanks.

If you have a limp dick, shouldn’t you warm your mingmen to up your kidney yang, and then stick out your tongue to see if it is still pale with a white coating in order to check for success![ http://www.altmd.com/Articles/TCM-for-Erectile-Dysfunction], [15] So tongue to penis is quite reasonable. Now that may all seem quite reasonable and sane to you, but what does it have to do with tiger’s penis? PPdd (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Use of Chinese language sources and hard copy sources.

Wiki is viewed with skepticism by many, who think they may find junk information hidden in it. Skeptical readers like to be able to verify everything. A problem with Chinese language sources, and even with hard copy sources, is that they are difficult or impossible for most readers to verify, making the article essentially useless. From Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources –

“When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote or the talk page.”

It is best in a footnote, since it will be hard for average future non-editor users to find in the talk page archives, if they even know what a talk page or its archive is. PPdd (talk) 17:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

If such a source is provided on the talk page then the editor who provided them has met their obligations. That's not to say that you aren't welcome yourself to add such a foot note to help future non-editors. By all means go ahead.70.15.191.119 (talk) 17:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Its not required to put it in the footnote. But it is best for readers, and best to make sure nobody deletes it if they did not see the talk page before it gets archived. PPdd (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

No translations have been provided in footnotes or at talk. Yet after deletion and requests for such, WP, and no response was given in any way to this second request for translation. Instead edit warring began, WP:BURDEN was ignored, and mainstream MEDRS sources such as Biocommunication and the American Cancer Society were declared NRS, with sources removed and wording replaced using Chinese language sources, without establishing reliablity or providing translations as requested. I was called a "vandalism" for deleting after two weeks under WP:BURDEN, and my deletions were edit warred. PPdd (talk) 14:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

PPdd, please pay closer attention. I replaced most of my Chinese sources with English ones. There are now exactly 8 Chinese sources remaining. 4 of these are sources only document the correct use of a Chinese term/character - how do you want me to further translate or replace that? In 3 of the 8 sources, I provided English translation in the footnotes. I apologize for taking my time with the remaining one source (8-4-3=1), but what's the big problem here? --Mallexikon (talk) 15:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC).

I understand why there has been a misunderstanding. WP:V requires both' (1) a copy of the original in the original language, and (2) a translation of it, when requested by an editor. (3) This is not just a copy and translation of the title and author, but of the text that is referenced by a line in the article. If it is so extensive as to be a copyright violation, it should go in the talk page where the request is made, otherwise it is best in a footnote. PPdd (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No, that wasn't what I meant. But to put this discussion behind us once and for all, I gave translations for all 8 Chinese sources now. Mallexikon (talk) 04:12, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfaithful citations, required quotation and translation, NRS vs. RS

In the meridian section there's this sentence: "The locations are not based on anatomical structures discovered using dissection and the scientific method, but are based on the number of rivers considered to be major that flowed through a particular ancient Chinese empire, and calculations of Chinese astrology relating heavenly bodies to the human body" It has 6 citations (too many, actually, according to wikipedia standards). Out of these 6, 4 are accessible online. I just checked - all of them don't actually line this (ridiculous) claim! I challenge the editor who wrote this to come up with the exact quotations from the other 2 sources, otherwise I'm going to delete this sentence as a whole. I'll delete the 4 unfaithful citations right now. Mallexikon (talk) 10:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe this was originally just copied from the main acupuncture article, to replace completely NRS content that was in the TCM arcitle at that time. It was later modified by consensus to comply with the sources in the main acupuncture article, after many very long discussions, the number of sources was reduced. I will go check there and use the consensus wording which was per the reduced number of sources. (PS: Thanks for beginning translations. This is important not only because of inconsistencies with NRS content that was originally in the article, but will also fully stabilize your edits so they are not messed with or questioned in the future.) (PSS- I might have undone an edit of yours in error, trying to stop vandalism by a new editor who does not like what an RS says, and messed up numerous pictures that were in the article for a very long time, because they contain Caucasians practicing and getting acu-moxi, and do not depict Chinese. PPdd (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I think I understand what the problem is. The sources I mentioned talk about the number of meridians and the number of acupoints being seen in correspondence with rivers and days of the year. Someone took this correspondence as a causal relation, which is not permissible but argueably easy to confuse. I corrected the text accordingly. The sources itself are good, by the way. Mallexikon (talk) 02:16, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually there was RS for inferring a causal relationship, as the American Cencer Society said it was "originally based on" the correspondence. It is very unlikely that there was a happenstance of correspondence between "finding" 365 accupunctuer points and that happening to be the number of days a year as was argued at that talk page. There was constant talk page bickering about the ACS inferring causality, which they have a right to do and still be RS. But your wording should (hopefully) avoid this bickering, as it is very slightly POV against the RS ACS conslusion. PPdd (talk) 02:37, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not POV as it is clearly in line with all the other sources (except ACS. Who are not really an authority on Chinese philosophy and/or history of TCM). Anyway, I hope this wording can be generally excepted. Mallexikon (talk) 04:48, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

There is a vandal using multiple account names deleting content and images between our edits, making it difficult for me to keep track of versions, since we have each been editing between them. It is hard for me to tell which version is which at this point. Many of the images have been deleted, moved, or damaged. PPdd (talk) 05:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Another example is linking "12 rivers" with "rivers of China". PPdd (talk) 05:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I also find it hard to keep track among the edit conflicts. However, I'd like to emphasize this here again:
In the meridian section there's this sentence: "The locations are not based on anatomical structures discovered using dissection and the scientific method, but are based on the number of rivers considered to be major that flowed through a particular ancient Chinese empire, and calculations of Chinese astrology relating heavenly bodies to the human body" It has 6 citations (too many, actually, according to wikipedia standards). Out of these 6, 4 are accessible online. I just checked - all of them don't actually line this (ridiculous) claim! I challenge the editor who wrote this to come up with the exact quotations from the other 2 sources, otherwise I'm going to delete this sentence as a whole. I'll delete the 4 unfaithful citations right now. (Again) Mallexikon (talk) 06:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the ACS conclusions: their artical literally says "... Originally, 365 acupoints were identified, corresponding to the number of days in a year. Over time, the number of acupoints grew to more than 2,000." I find it quite far-fetched to take this a source for the notion that the concept of acupoints is based on cosmic parameters. Mallexikon (talk) 06:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

You can't delete material because quotes are not provided except for foreign languge sources. Quotations are only required for foreign language sources. Also, you must establish that these are reliable sources. This has not been done. There have been citation needed tags up for many weeks now, and you took them off without providing translations. You can't just delete blocks of reliable sources such as Biocommunicatoin and the American Cancer Society because it does not fit your personal views, nor challenge their conclusions without reason other than your personal views. You must establish that your many sources are reliable sources, then provide translations. These requests were up for weeks. PPdd (talk) 06:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't quite get what you're meaning. Are you referring to a number of different topics at the same time, maybe? Regarding the deletion of citations - I did not do this because it doesn't fit my personal views, but because they were unfaithful citations. Mallexikon (talk) 08:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The American Cancer Society is RS, despite any supernatural beliefs an editor may have that are not in accordance with it.

The Journal of Biocommunication is RS and MEDRS, and the article language is clear. Per WP:V, this online English language history of medicine article in an eminent medical journal takes precedence over NRS and untranslated Chinese language books, regulated by the propoganda machine of the communist Chinese government. The “alternative anatomy” and physiology of TCM is wrong, such as to location of organs and non-existing pathways of supernatural forces and the physiological function of these supernatural forces. TCM anatomy is “determined by complex associations with gods and all existing by divine will”, and relies on astrology with “inauspicious dates for cauterization and bleeding; it draws relationships between astrology and blood-letting”. The “alternative anatomy” of TCM is based on “deduc(ing) anatomy through speculation and hazy recollections of past experiences”. “The Chinese based their knowledge of anatomy on metaphor”, not dissection. “The Chinese drew mystical numerical associations… It was no coincidence to the ancient Chinese, for example, that our four limbs matched the number of seasons and directions... five (organs) corresponding to the five planets; 12 vessels circulating blood and air corresponding to the 12 rivers flowing toward the Central Kindgom; and 365 parts of the body, one for each day of the year… Internal organs were not regarded as… having distinct functions… Such things as… blood flow were not assigned origins in the… the heart.” TCM uses “imaginary organ system(s)…” where TCM medical charts demonstrate the ancient Chinese disregard for specific organ morphology.” Etc.

• In summary,
• (1) Please stop deleting RS content and sources that you personally disagree with.
• (2) Please stop using foreign language sources that are not reliable.
• (3) Please provide exact quotations and their translations for any foreign language source that you can establish as being reliable.
• (4) Please stop replacing good online English language sources such as the American Cancer Society and the Journal of Biocommunication with offline, untranslated, and NRS foreign language sources, per WP:V.
• (5) Please don't replace plain English with not plain English. PPdd (talk) 16:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi PPdd, sorry, but you are moving too fast :). If we want to straighten this out, we'll have to do it issue by issue - not five issues at once. First of all, I don't know how and why you got the notion that I have any supernatural believes - I don't believe in TCM, I don't prescribe it to my patients, and I certainly didn't fall for any communist propaganda machine. I'm just very interested in this part of Chinese culture, and I think it deserves to be presented in an encyclopedia in an objective and neutral (and detailed) way. If you think it's important to present the harmful and bizarre sides of TCM - be my guest. I agree. But if you start deleting information I contributed like this one:

"Traditional Chinese drugs are sometimes based on animal/human or mineral substances, but "plants are by far the most commonly used" ingredients. In the classic Handbook of Traditional Drugs from 1941, 517 drugs were listed - out of these 517, only 45 were animal parts, and 30 were minerals."

then you'll have a hard time claiming your NPOV. I used a reliable, online-accessible English source, but you chose to delete it anyway ([16]). Why? Because it doesn't fit into your agenda? --Mallexikon (talk) 13:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• regarding the Chinese sources: I replaced most of them by English sources and provided translations for two Chinese sources which were too important to lose. In three cases or so I cited Chinese sources because I had to cite the Chinese terms and characters - these sources obviously can't be replaced nor translated
• I never replaced RS content I personally disagree with. I removed two citation blocks because they were not supporting the point they were cited for (which I find outrageous, by the way. Using sources in an unfaithful way undermines the credibility of wikipedia as a whole)
• I don't know what you mean with "replacing plain English with not plain English". Please provide an example. --Mallexikon (talk) 14:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• I did edits line by line, with an edit summary for each. Different editors move at different speeds. I am essentially done editing at TCM, as it now has RS for each and every statement, a far cry from when you first came to it and began your improvements. Your edits are a great improvement on the highly abstruse, specialized, detailed, and esoteric theoretical superstructure underpinnings section.
• I did not delete anything(I may have accidentally deleted something trying to keep up with the recent multi-vandal attack, sorry), I moved things to consolidate them into relevant sections, or I removed redundancies that I myself had put in the aricle, in error. If I deleted anything, it was in error. I did deleted one thing, two sentences or so about Australia, which is WP:UNDUE, especially since the same info about minutea of legislation for each country or province or state in that country would overwhelm the article. I have no objection to putting it back in if you like.
• I was not the editor who deleted (or if I did, I did so by error) "Traditional Chinese drugs are sometimes based on animal/human or mineral substances, but "plants are by far the most commonly used" ingredients. In the classic Handbook of Traditional Drugs from 1941, 517 drugs were listed - out of these 517, only 45 were animal parts, and 30 were minerals." This is kind of obvoius since there are so many more plants than animals in the world in general. The source is dated 1945, so can't be used for stating what is common in 2011, only in 1945, but I have no real problem with it, and will reinsert it as worded.
• I might be confusing you with a string of vandal editors, who edited bewteen both of our edits. So I apologize if you were not the one who did these.
• Re "these sources obviously can't be replaced nor translated". Why not? Under WP:V, an editor when asked must provide both a copy in the original langauge, and a translation of it to English, in order for other editors to be able to verify it. This will only help your edits stay in for the long term, as other editors come along and question things. PPdd (talk) 15:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• I do not delete RS content. If the source does not support it, I reword it. If it has no RS, I either put a citation needed tag, or if the tag has been up for a while, I move the content to the talk page and ask others to help find RS. It is possible I accidentally deleted your good edits when undoing vandalism by others, and if I did so I apologize. I will go back and check my undoing of vandalism, and make sure I did not accidentally catch your good edits up in the undoing process. PPdd (talk) 16:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Mallexikon (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)