People have been and are sick. Both in the West and in the East. Both in ancient times and today. In the East, schools of treatment for a wide variety of illnesses have long existed, while in enlightened Europe, as recently as the 19th century, many ailments were treated with bloodletting or cleansing enemas.
In the West, a simplistic view of human illness is common. Someone has a high fever and a headache? Let's take measures against it. But in reality, the person is actually being attacked by some microorganisms, and the fever helps the body fight the infection. Even though it makes the person feel unwell.
Fortunately, over time, Western medicine learned to combat microorganisms that cause disease. Moreover, it learned to develop immunity to many diseases. These same diseases, which just a few centuries ago raged across Europe, like plague, smallpox, and anthrax, turned entire regions into desolate wastelands.
Scarlet fever, measles, pneumonia… Some of these are now vaccinated against, and if not, we've learned to treat them. The only unknown is how long the effects of such treatment last.
The first antibiotic, penicillin, worked wonders in frontline hospitals. People previously doomed to die from sepsis were able to overcome their previously fatal illnesses and recover with the help of this miracle drug.
Pneumonia, once a deadly disease, has become treatable—as long as it's not left untreated. Even the plague, once almost completely fatal, has been vanquished; vaccinations protect against it, and if a person hasn't been vaccinated and falls ill, modern medications offer a 75% chance of recovery—as long as treatment is started early.
Alas, antibiotics began their triumphant journey, their work saving humanity, only about 80 years ago, in the 1940s. But pathogens have already learned to adapt to them. People themselves are also starting to develop allergies to antibiotics. If someone is allergic to strong antibiotics and develops pneumonia due to bacteria resistant to conventional antibiotics, all they can do is pray. They certainly have a chance of recovery, but not much better than people in the pre-antibiotic era.
The same applies to tuberculosis. Once undoubtedly fatal, it was defeated by new drugs, but then found the strength to adapt to first-generation antibiotics—and struck again.
The only absolute weapon against the terrible diseases of the past is vaccination, which creates immunity. However, many vaccinations are only effective for a limited time and must be repeated, while each vaccination carries a small but risky outcome.
In the East, the foundations of medicine were laid 5,000 years ago; for thousands of years, sages studied, tested, verified, and used methods to strengthen the human body.
When we visit our local clinic, our primary care physician takes our pulse. If our heart rate is rapid, they begin to suspect vascular or cardiac problems and prescribe vascular and cardiac tests, and based on the results, treatment.
A Chinese doctor, following the rules of Eastern medical science, not only counts the pulse but also evaluates it. What is the pulse on a person's right hand, and what is the pulse on the left? The pulse is measured at three points on the aorta, as well as on the radial, ulnar, and temporal arteries, as well as on the feet and the arteries of the legs.
The pulse is measured not only by a stopwatch, but also by the patient's breathing. Chinese doctors distinguish only six types of pulse and seven types of “pulsus paradoxus,” which in itself indicates certain illnesses in the patient.
Where our local physician will prescribe a bunch of tests and then send the patient to the district diagnostic center, a Chinese specialist will listen to the pulse and diagnose the disease without resorting to tests.
Eastern medicine strives to strengthen the patient's body so it can overcome the disease itself. To combat illness, Tibetan doctors prefer therapeutic nutrition, isolation from the outside world in picturesque places, and body cleansing through exercise and potions.
Indian doctors treat patients according to the “Science of Life,” or Ayurveda. The foundations of Indian medicine are yoga with its exercises, herbal medicine, and the application of acupuncture and moxibustion to sensitive points on the body.
In China, not only do they reliably diagnose twelve diseases based solely on pulse and breathing, but they also invented rejuvenating and healing exercises. Acupuncture, or acupuncture, was invented in China. When Western civilization learned of this Chinese healing method, it was long dismissed as quackery—after all, everyone knows that all diseases stem from thickening or thinning of bile!
But gradually, it was discovered that this treatment method worked, although Europeans didn't understand how or why. The primitive materialism of the Soviet era also long rejected Chinese medicine—the science of healing.
Today, scientists know that acupuncture has a history spanning thousands of years. As early as 1550 BC, ancient Egyptian priests practicing acupuncture wrote down a document detailing treatment methods and acupressure points on the human body.
The oldest Chinese treatise on acupuncture dates back to 221 BC, although it is known that the famous Chinese physician Bian Qiao treated his patients with acupuncture, and he lived in the sixth century BC. From then until today, the art of acupuncture has evolved from generation to generation—for over 2,500 years.
Although Western doctors do not believe in the circulation of Qi, the vital energy, through channels within the human body, a doctor who has been trained by Chinese acupuncturists, knows the active points and their properties, and follows memorized instructions, is able to cure many diseases.
In the West, however, they continue to either encourage people to fight the symptoms of illnesses or to administer powerful antibiotics to people, which destroy all microflora in a person—both pathogenic and those that symbiotically coexist in the body, ensuring our comfortable existence.
Scientists discovered quite a long time ago that antibiotics destroy intestinal microflora. At the same time, they realized that this is bad for humans. And instead of considering whether antibiotics, which completely destroy human microflora, should be replaced, pharmaceutical companies came up with a new type of pill to restore intestinal microflora!
Which treatment method is best? Time will tell.