More praise for
Between Heaven and Earth
“A lucid introduction to the subtle, strange, and eminently useful
ideas and methods of Orient al medicine  … The authors transmit a
unique understanding of the ways in which Chinese medicine
enables us to know more intimately the particular nature of our
humanity.”
Ted Kaptchuk                                        
Author of The Web That Has No Weaver
“Opens the door to a fresh new world of understanding your health. With the increasing demand for a layman’s book on Oriental
medicine, Between Heaven and Earth  lls an important gap and has
been a long time needed.”
Dr. Gurusant S. Khalsa                         
President                                             
American Association of Acupuncture  
and Oriental Medicine                       
“I have read Between Heaven and Earth  with great admiration and
interest.…  It is both encyclopedic in range and completely
accessible to the lay reader. The authors have done the public an
immense service.”
Richard Selzer, M.D. Author of Mortal Lessons
“Between Heave n and Earth  represents a remarkable blend of
philosophy, medicine and history.… I learned a great deal.”
Norman Cousins“A fabulous and important book  … Well-written, profound, and
practical.”
Michael Tierra, N.D., O.M.D      
Autor of The Way of Herbs  and 
Planetary Herbology                  
“An extremely thorough introduction to Chinese medicine.”
New Age Journal
OceanofPDF.comOceanofPDF.comOceanofPDF.comSale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it
may have been reported as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher
may have received payment for it. This book is not intended to replace the services of a licensed health care provider in the
diagnosis or treatment of illness or disease. Any application of the material set forth in the
following pages is at the reader’s discretion and sole responsibility. A Ballantine Book  
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1991 by Harriet Beineld and Efrem Korngold  
Illustrations © 1991 by Susanne Panasik  
Illustrations copyright © 1991 by Val Mina  
Illustrations copyright © 1991 by Bruce Wang  
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American  
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc
www.ballantinebooks.com
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously
published material:
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH Four poems from Of All Things Most Yielding  selected by Marc Lappé,
edited by David R. Brower. Copyright by Friends of the Earth, Washington, D.C
SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.. Fourteen lines from The Sonnets to Orpheus  by Rainer Maria Rilke,
translated by Stephen Mitchell. Copyright © 1985 by Stephen Mitchell. Reprinted by
permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-90043eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-5173-3
www.ballantinebooks.com
Cover design by James R. Harris  
Cover calligraphy by Bruce Wong
v3.1
OceanofPDF.comHeaven, Earth , and I are living together, and all things and I form
an inseparable unity. Chuang Tzu
The organic pattern in Nature was for the medieval Chinese the Li,
and it was mirrored in every subordinate whole.…  Li signied the
pattern in things, the markin gs in jade or the bres in muscle, like
the strands in a piece of thread, or the bamboo in a basket  … it is
dynamic patte rn as embodied in all living things, in human
relationships and in the highest human values.…  Li, in its most
ancient meanin g, is the principle of organization and pattern in all
its forms. Joseph Needham
What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the
primrose and all four of them to me? And me to you? Gregory Bateson
OceanofPDF.comC O N T E N T S
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Foreword
T HEORY
CHAPTER ONE
Our Journey East: Exploring Foreign Territory
The Ancient Chinese Worldview
The Modern Predicament
Taoist Philosophy in Action
The Nature of Reality Shifts
The Reality of Medicine Shifts
Changing Denitions
The Cross-Fertilization of Medicine: East Goes West and West
Goes East
Miracles East and West
A Foreign Culture Planted on Home Soil
CHAPTER TWO
Philosophy in the West: The Doctor As Mechanic
Science: The New Religion of the West
Descartes: Nature and the Body As MachineThe Rise of Western Medicine
The Narrowing Denition of Disease
Narrowing the Institution of Medicine
Outcomes of This Medical Model
Other Paradoxes
CHAPTER THREE
Philosophy in the East: The Doctor As Gardener
The Motive Force: Qi
Health in the Garden
Health in the Microcosm of a Human Being
Patterns of Harmony in the Human Garden
Loss of Adaptive Ability: Disease
Observing the Signs: Diagnosis
Problems in Search of a Solution: Treatment
The Gardener and the Mechanic
CHAPTER FOUR
Cycles of Circles: A Theory of Relativity  
Yin-Yang
Opposition and Unity
Designations of Yin-Yang
Yin-Yang  and the Human Body
Qi, Moisture , and Blood
Everyday Life
Yin-Yang  Character Patterns
CHAPTER FIVE
Reading the Patterns: Diagnosis  
The Doctor As Detective, As ArtistCategories of Stress and the Genesis of Disease
The Five Climates
The Five Emotions
Methods of Examination: Observations, Questions, Palpations
The Eight Guiding Principles
The Acupuncturist and the Herbalist
Same Symptom, Dierent Disorders
CHAPTER SIX
Five-Phase Theory:  Evolutionary Stages of Transformation
Five-Phase Theory:  A Holographic Map
Phases As Transformative Stages
Phases of Pulsation
Five Organ Networks:  Traditional Chinese Physiology
Circulation of Qi from Day through Night
Interaction of the Five Phases: Sheng  and Ke Sequences
The Consequences of Dissonance
For Example, The Liver Pattern
Organ Networks
T YPES
CHAPTER SEVEN
Who Am I? : Five-Phase  Archetypes
Five Phases  Distinguish Five Types of People
Individual Psychology in Chinese Medicine
Five-Phase Theory  for Self-Understanding
Typology Is Not Equivalent to Pathology
Self-Assessment QuestionnaireDetermining Your Type
Yearning to Be Another
Understanding Sheng  and Ke
Steps to Solving the Puzzle
From Theory to Practice
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wood
The Archetype for Wood:  The Pioneer
Sally: Exemplar of Wood
How We Recognize Sally As a Wood  Type
The Evolution of Distorted Patterns of Wood
Dan: How Come I’m Not Better Yesterday? So, You Think You’re a Wood Type
CHAPTER NINE
Fire
The Archetype for Fire: The Wizard
Hector: Exemplar of Fire
How We Recognize Hector As a Fire Type
The Evolution of Distorted Patterns of Fire
Maria: Is It Warm in Here or Is It Just Me? So, You Think You’re a Fire Type
CHAPTER TEN
Earth
The Archetype for Earth:  The Peacemaker
Dorothy: Exemplar of Earth
How We Recognize Dorothy As an Earth  TypeThe Evolution of Distorted Patterns of Earth
Richard: Join My Team
So, You Think You’re an Earth  Type
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Metal
The Archetype for Metal:  The Alchemist
Louis: Exemplar of Metal
How We Recognize Louis As a Metal  Type
The Evolution of Distorted Patterns of Metal
Stella: I Live By the Book
So, You Think You’re a Metal  Type
CHAPTER TWELVE
Water
The Archetype for Water:  The Philosopher
Kate: Exemplar of Water
How We Recognize Kate As a Water  Type
The Evolution of Distorted Patterns of Water
Homer: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
So, You Think You’re a Water  Type
T HERAPY
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Acupuncture: A Unied Field of Invisible Channels
Gates Open into a Matrix of Channels
Correspondence Theory and Reorganizing Patterns of Illness
How Does Acupuncture Work, Anyway?The Mechanic and Gardener Revisited
Bioelectric Oscillating Fields
Acupuncture Treatment: What to Expect
Acupuncture First Aid: Acupressure Massage
Fifty Acupuncture Points For Self-Care
How to Locate the Points
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Cauldron of Chinese Herbs: Wisdom You Can Swallow
In Sickness and in Health
The Chinese Store of Herbal Knowledge
How Chinese Herbs Are Classied: Qualities and Properties
Herbal Properties and Their Eects: Four Examples
Formulating Herbal Prescriptions
Translating Symptoms into Patterns
Translating Patterns into Modular Formulas
Self-Assessment Prole
Symptom Patterns of Depletion and Congestion
Preparing Herbal Tea
Using Chinese Patent Medicines
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Culinary Alchemy: Herbal Food, Kitchen Medicine
Food Ideology West and East
How Is Your Digestion? Eating: Digestion or Congestion
Establishing the Condition of Earth: Stomach  and Spleen
Dening the Relationship Between Food and Function
What Should I Eat?Learning Herbal Cuisine
Cooking Tips
Pantry Herbs
Simple Recipes to Harmonize Qi, Moisture , and Blood
Ingredients to Eliminate Heat, Cold, Wind , and Phlegm
Recipes for the Five Phases : Seasons and Climates
Herbal Breads and Cakes
Congees and Soups for Common Ailments  
 
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Resource Guide: Finding Practitioners and Chinese Herbs
Notes
Glossary
Herb Names Cross Reference
Bibliography
About the Authors
OceanofPDF.comF OREWORD
FOR OVER  TWENTY-THREE CENTURIES ACUPUNCTURE NEEDLES AND GINseng
have mended what is now one-quarter of the world’s population, yet
it is only in the last two decades that most Americans have even
heard of them. In 1971, the year before the “Bamboo Curtain” lifted,
New York Times  journalist James Reston became ill while on
assignment in China. After having his appendix remove d, he was
treated with acupuncture for postsurgical pain. The front-page
stories he sent home reported , “I’ve seen the past, and it works!” At
that moment Chinese medicine entered mainstream American
consciousness. Efrem and I began to practi ce acupuncture shortly after that in
1973. Since then we’ve treated thousands of Americans. One was
Sam, a thirty-six-year-old biochemist, who had an excruciating pain
in his abdomen diagnosed by his doctor as gallstones. Although he
felt skeptical about Chinese medicine, he was more frightened by
the prospect of surgery. After two months of acupuncture, herbs,
and dietary modication, Sam expelled scores of stones, and a
sonogram con rmed that surgery was no longer necessary. Esther, a
retired seventy-ve-year-old nurse, had severe arthritis. After a year
she was free of pain and had recovered the use of her joints and
limbs. Fifteen years later she’d had no recurrence. Yet another
person was Suzanne, who at age twenty-eight, after three
miscarriages and two gynecological surgeries, was unable to
conceive. In the eighth month of treatment, she became pregnant
and later delivered a healthy daughter, now a teenager. These people and many like them had their intellect aroused by
their success with acupuncture and herbs. Having been impressed,
they wanted to be informed. We began writing this book in responseto their request, “Where can I read more about it?” Although other
books exist on the subject, none give the uninitiated a
comprehensive yet comprehensible overview. So we set out to
explain our sense of what Chinese medicine is—how it thinks, how
it works, what it can do. Numerous schools of thought and various methods are found
within the vast historical tradition of Chinese medicine. It has never
been a monolithic institution . After all, millions of docto rs over the
millennia have practiced its techniques and developed its theories. It
sustained itself in part by adjusting to changing conditions and will
continue to develop dieren tly in each country and era in relation
to the social demands and belief systems that prevail  there. In
Medicine in China: A History of Ideas , Paul Unschuld comments:
The travel of ideas is diere nt from the travel of merchandise. The latter can be handed on, from one region to the next, by
dierent means of transporta tion, without itself undergoin g any
change. Ideas  must be transmitted by the head, and, of
necessity, will undergo change. Where could a foreign idea be
accepted, assim ilated, or transmitted without being inuenced
by the particular situation it meets, by the changing languages
that serve as its means of transportation, and by the
preconditioned patterns of thought cherished by the nal
receiver? As Chinese medicine takes root in our terrain, it evolves to adapt
to our environment. Does a botanist hiking along steep slopes move
through the same forest as the native tribesman who once dwelled
among the evergreens? Is a mountain that endures the ages the
same even though climbers see variable landscapes from epoch to
epoch? What the mountain means to people and how they use it
changes with each traveler or caravan. Ideas, more mutable and
malleable than landmasses, are even more liable to change form. The ancient Chinese had their own mythos, language,circumstances, preoccupations, and we have ours. This book
represents a nexus, a point of convergence, a meeting of worlds. As we traveled the curved footpaths around mountains of Chinese
medical thoug ht, we made choices about what to include, what to
leave out, and how best to express our version of these ideas. Between Heave n and Earth  is a product of continuous dialogue
between dual authors—an unnished conversation, the most
coherent statement we can express at this time. It’s not the
denitive summary of Chinese medicine, the last word, but a
starting point for new discou rse that invites the next utterance. The
“we” refers to our collaborative voice, whereas the “I” belongs to
Harriet, who sometimes chooses to convey ideas through her
personal narrative. Between Heaven and Earth  is a cross-cultural transmission and
transplantation. In transposing Chinese ideas into our own idiom,
our challenge has been to bridge gaps—between mind and body,
theory and practice, therapy and self-care, practitioner and patient,
ancient and modern, convention and invention, East and West. We
have dug into and mined the rich ore of Chinese medicine for the
purpose of creating new metal, a rened alloy. Through cultural
blending, we are transmuting wisdom from early China  into what
has relevance for us today. Welcome to an ongoing process. We have divided our discussion of Chinese medicine into three
overlapping parts:
• Theory: the ideas—about nature, the human body, and the self
—upon which the medicine is based
• Types: the psychology in Chinese medicine—how ve
archetypes symbolize human character, illuminating  our
personal tao, the way we are
• Therapy: the treatment methods of acupuncture, herbs, diet—
what they are and how to use themThe rst section, “Theory,” introduces you to the essential
principles of traditional Chinese medicine and explains the beliefs
upon which this foreign medicine rests. We also examine how these
beliefs dier from the assumptions we take for granted in Western
medicine—the conceptual baggage we carry with us from home. After establishing the philosophical grammar, the logic and
vocabulary through which Chinese medicine speaks, you can begin
to acquire the uency to converse in its language. As we worked on the second section of the book, “Types,” we
played with Chinese theory, elaborating upon it to suit American
conditions and needs. Our intellectual chemistry commingled with
Eastern thinkin g, propagatin g reactions of its own. What  came out
of this was an articulation of the psychology implicit in Chinese
medicine yet not explicitly developed by the Chinese. For Americans, psychology—the study of how people think, feel,
and behave—captures immense interest. In contrast, the gaze of
Chinese cultur e is averted away from the individual and instead
directed toward social groups (the family, collective, and state), so
psychology in China is quite underdeveloped, and its medicine has
focused primarily upon physical symptoms. But becau se Chinese
medical theory assumes human process unfolds as a consequence of
the tension and unity between interacting system s, mental
phenomena are not considered to be altogether separate or distinct
from physical events. We have fused Chinese theory with outlooks from Western
psychology for the purpose of transcending our cultural practice of
isolating physiology from psychology so that we can begin to knit
together the fracture that splits body from mind. Toward that end,
we have generated a schema of types: ve metaphors for the
emotional, physical, and spiritual dynamics that organize us. Each
of these types has idiosyncratic traits, motivations, and struggles—
ve styles of being in the world. You are invited to discover how
your style of interpreting reality ts within these categories and
discern who you are:
• The Pioneer , determined to make things happen• The Wizard , seeking magic and excitement
• The Peacemaker , constantly arranging and harmonizing the
world
• The Alchemist , who masters form and function
• The Philosopher , relentlessly in pursuit of truth
By identifying people’s archetypes, the sources of their virtues,
strengths, dilemmas, and limitations become apparent. These
depictions help to counterac t the discomting image many of us
have of ourselves as a hapha zard collection of disjointed events and
shifting identities. Instead there is a pattern in our tapestry—woven
through us and by us—we embody and manifest its design. Examining its fabric informs  us about how we are predisposed to
suer and derive satisfaction  in particular ways. An outco me of self-
recognition can be self-acceptance, often a precursor to self-mastery. This system is a lens, a model, a paradigm through which we can
understand, explain, and help ourselves and others. Although this book is not a manual or textbook, we want to
encourage you to experience as well as comprehend the potential
this medicine oers. So the third section of the book, “Therapy,”
explains methods of treatmen t and the thought process used by each
one. Acupuncture need not be intimidating; herbal medicine need
not be mystied; and the promise of Chinese food therapy has not
yet begun to dazzle our palates. In addition to explanation, we provide practical counsel by
guiding you toward the herbal remedies and foods appropriate for
you. To do this, we devised a system that simplies yet preserves
the art of prescribing. Since Chinese herbs can be purchased over-
the-counter, we outline a set of herbal formulas and herbal food
recipes so that those of you so motivated can put your
understanding into action. As you read this book you may want to selectively navig ate your
passage, readin g the text out of sequence, skipping to sections that
most engage you. Some will be intrigued by the ideas, others by
traditional Chinese diagnosis and physiology, others will search forthe right herb formula, and still others will be immediately drawn to
the middle of the book to identify themselves and their family
within the schema of the ve archetypes, returning later to the other
chapters. Many people in our culture have been nurturing a shift in
consciousness as they search for alternatives to the threatening
political and environmental dilemmas our civilization has created. Our overarching concern, the meta-purpose of this book, is to
demonstrate that to think through the mind of Chinese medicine, to
see through its eyes, is in itself a healing process. What makes Chinese medicine distinct, even more than its needles
and herbs, is its metaphysics (assumptions about reality),
epistemology (ways of acquiring knowledge), and ideology (system
of beliefs and values), all of which nd their expression in the Taoist
imperatives of preserving life and living in accord with nature. To
the extent that we learn to live with nature—with our own nature,
each other, and the earth—we have freedom, power, and purpose
and can enjoy life. To the extent that we do not, we suer. For us,
the ethic of Chinese medicine is to assist us in this striving. OceanofPDF.comI 
THEORY
OceanofPDF.comOur Journey East: Exploring Foreign TerritoryCHAPTER ONE
OUR JOURNEY  EAST: EXPLORING  FOREIGN
TERRITORY
Lying motionless, gazing at a chart on the wall showing streams
of force  connec ting the little toe with the corner of the eye in a
web of continu ous loops, I feel my breath soften and my vision
sharpen
Delicate pins protrude from my elbow, ankle, and knee. My
arms and legs are ooded by tiny rivulets of current. It’s not
like a hypodermic needle that injects a foreign substance—what
I’m feeling is simply more of myself. It’s strange, in the sense of
odd and unfamiliar, but as a sensation not unpleasant. In fact,
the edges of my mouth are cradling a silly smile. The skin is stretched less tightly over my bony frame as my
pores relax. I sense movement as I lie quiet, aware of impulse
within my mind at rest. Thoughts tumble into consciousness,
roll over, and shue o. With my eyes closed, and perception directed inward,
simultaneous layers of activity play like instruments in concert
with each other. I am the composer and the composed, the
musician and the listener, the instrument and its player. SUBTLE YET PALPABLE, MY INITIAL ENCOUNTER WITH ACUPUNCTURE LEFT me
tantalized by mystery and promise. Mystery, in that tiny needles
could extend my eld of awareness and completely alter the state ofmy being. Promise, in that by burrowing into the conceptual soil of
this system, I could deepen my self-understanding. As the daughter of a surge on and the granddaughter  of two
surgeons, my early life was steeped in the cauldron of medicine
brewed over several generations. Enthusiasm for healing was
contagious, and I became infected. As a child I was impressed by my
father’s devoti on and satisfaction. He rushed to the hospital day or
night to opera te on a man lacerated in a motorcycle accident or a
child threatened by a ruptured appendix. Lives would have been lost
without his heroic intervention. The role of doctor and the appeal of medicine came naturally—
but why Chinese medicine? The ideology of Chinese medicine
immediately captivated me by its stark contrast to the perspective of
Western medical science. I had never been comfortable thinking of
myself in my father’s language of electrolytes and blood-g as ratios, a
collection of quantities and statistics. The Chinese medical
vocabulary contained metaph ors from nature like Wood, Fire, Earth,
Metal , and Water, Heat, Wind , and Cold. * This cosmological
description of human process conrmed what I knew intuitively to
be so—that what moves the world outside moves within me—that
subject and object are two aspects of one phenomenal world. As
peculiarly outside my cultural context as it was, Chinese  medicine
felt familiar. What enticed me even more than my sense of
continuity with family tradition was the anity I felt with its
concepts, and I wondered if the ancient wisdom embedded within
its constructio n of reality could untangle some of our modern
predicaments. When Efrem and I were rst introduced to acupunctu re at a
seminar at Esalen in the spring of 1972, there was tremendous
upheaval in the world. The Chinese were in the midst of a cultural
revolution, and so were we. During the sixties the concerns I
wrestled with were more social than medical. Many of us were
seeking to antidote the toxicity of racism in the American social
body and heal the wounds inicted by a decade of violence in
Vietnam. I struggled to understand and reconcile how Western
civilization, having achieved some outstanding accomplishments,could so often contribute to rather than alleviate human suering. How could it perpetuate vast environmental insult and the threat of
nuclear disaster and yet be building a better future? To remake the world it seemed we needed to rethink it. After all,
solutions depend on how problems are framed, the context within
which they exist. At issue for me was in part how we dened reality
—and the reality assumed by Chinese medicine made sense. Chinese medicine echoes the logic of quantum physics, which
suggests that we exist in a relative, process-oriented universe in
which there is no “objective” world separable from living subjects. The essential questions cannot be resolved by measuring static
“things”; rather, answers become stories about interactions and
relationships. Within this paradigm contradictions are not only
sanctioned but prevail, and truth is purely contextual. In contrast
with our conventional Western tendency to draw sharp lines of
distinction, Chinese thought does not strictly determine the
boundaries between rest and motion, time and space, mind and
matter, sickness and health. Chinese medicine transcends the
illusion of separation by inhabiting the reality of a unie d eld, an
interwoven pattern of inseparable links in a circular chain. THE ANCIENT  CHINESE  WORLDVIEW
The ancient Chinese perceive d human beings as a microc osm of the
universe that surrounded them, suused with the same primeval
forces that motivated the macrocosm. They imagined themselves as
part of one unbroken wholeness, called Tao, a singular  relational
continuum within and without. This thinking predates the dissection
of mind  from body and man from nature that Western culture
performed in the seventeenth century. From when I rst encountere d it, this fusing of the mind with the
body and people with their world had a magic, seductive lure. I was
eager to imagine myself as integrated and interrelated,  an active
participant in a system in the continuous process of transforming
itself. I learned that Chinese philosophers and physicians havestudied nature over thousan ds of years, divining how to interact
with it to cultivate and guide Qi (prono unced “chee”), life’s
animating force and substance. The Chinese concept of Qi
symbolizes life in all its forms: thoughts and emotions, tissue and
blood, inner life and outer expression. I wanted to reap and share
the benets of their knowledge. I was startled to nd that my father considered Chinese medicine
quackery. Even though I could appreciate that surgery and
antibiotics were often necessary, my father could not entertain the
value of acupuncture and herbs. Though I could appreciate the
worth of a microscope to identify tissue alterations and bacteria, my
father could not fathom the notion of Qi. It probably should not
have surprised me, since Chinese medicine does not rest solely upon
the tangible, measurable phenomena upon which his medicine
relies. That I was drawn to a system outside his Western conceptual
framework unsettled and oended him. Yet I recognized the Chinese
view as inclusive, not exclusive. Within that view the subtle,
ephemeral, and invisible were as signicant as what could be seen,
touched, and counted, and caring for the human spirit was no less
essential or real than caring for the human structure, nor separate
from it. THE MODERN  PREDICAMENT
Western philosophy was more akin to Eastern until the Renaissance
of the seventeenth century, when our civilization revolutionized its
thinking. It was then that the scientic philosophy of the 1600s
began to consider people as independent of the living systems that
surround them  and assumed that we could dominate and exploit
nature without being aected by it. We escaped from dependency
on and attachment to the natural world, pursuing invulnerability,
invincibility, and immortality. Four hundred years later many of us
regret this stance, aware, as anthropologist Gregory Bateson puts it,
that “an organism that destroys its environment destroys itself.”The long-term survival of our species has been placed at risk by
an unbridled lust for short-term gains coupled with a false
postulation of civilization’s autonomy from nature. Human beings
have befouled their own nest, a sure sign of either madness or
disease when observed in the rest of the animal kingdom. Contamination of rivers and seas puts sh in peril and threatens our
potable water supply, the ozone layer is nibbled by uorocarbons,
rain forests perish so that cattle can graze, soil depletion and
pesticides diminish the quality of our food, urban horizons shimmer
with heavy ocher air … The litany seems endless. The disruption of
our global respiration seems the consequence of burning fossil fuels
(which ll the air with carbon dioxide and other gases, trapping
heat) and of denuding forests (whose trees release oxygen , consume
carbon dioxide, and attract water vapor to cool the earth’s surface). Known as the “greenhouse eect,” this upset in the relationship
between the primal elemen ts of heat and cold, re and water,
produces a fever of land, sea, and air with disastrous repercussions
—upon weather conditions and marine, animal, and human life as
we know it. The gravity of issues like this has motivated burgeoning numbers
of us to re-form our consciousness about who we are and how to
live with each other upon the earth. We are being obliged to see
how that which appears to be separate aects and ts within a
pattern, and we are seeing, as Bateson points out, that “the patterns
connect.” Reluctantly we are entertaining the idea that it may be
necessary to transcend think ing of ourselves solely as entities with
private interes ts (nation-state s, corporate bodies, individu al persons)
and instead view ourselves and our world as one organic system. Today many of us seek to reclaim the sense of connectedness that
existed universally in ancient culture, when human fate was wholly
entwined with nature. The ecological assumption within these
cosmologies held that all things were inextricably bound together. The world was seen as a symbiotic entity in which each living
system interacted with and mutually supported every other. The
growing popularity of Chinese medicine, which embodies these
values, is itself part of a pattern. Chinese medicine instructs us toperceive the way the world functions and re-create harmony within
the context of the whole. TAOIST PHILOSOPHY IN  ACTION
Protecting human life by preserving the conditions within which it
thrives is the purpose of Chinese medicine. Each of us is pictured as
an ecosystem as well as living within one. The balance of forces
within us (Yin-Yang, Heat-Cold, Blood-Qi ) determines our internal
climate, our health or disease. Chinese medic ine embraces the logic that the best remedy for
calamity is to avert it—the best cure for sickness is prevention. The
Nei Jing , a medical classic written in the second century B.C., states:
Maintaining order rather than correcting disorder is the
ultimate princ iple of wisdom. To cure disease after it has
appeared is like digging a well when one already feels thirsty,
or forging weapons after the war has already begun. The true physician teaches the Tao—how to live. Traditional
Chinese docto rs are trained to cultivate wellness as well as to
correct ill health. Planning ahead, Chinese medicine knows that
storms interrupt clear weather, that illness stalks and gains a
foothold when we are vulnerable. Its strategy is to enable us to
withstand the storm without becoming disabled by it and to
accumulate resources in times of good weather, peace, and plenty. The technolog y of Chinese medicine—simple, inexpensive, and
highly portable—was what rst ignited Efrem’s imagination. A
traditional doctor in China need carry only a few needles and gather
local herbs from the countryside to minister to his patients. Because
this medicine was so accessi ble, after the revolution in 1949 many
thousands of “barefoot doctors” were trained to serve the unmet
needs of the Chinese people for medical care. This equipped
ordinary people with the tools to gain control of their own lives.In contrast with this model, American medical doctors are
assigned the active (powerful) roles while patients are resigned to
passive (powerless) ones. Efrem felt a kinship with the Taoist
physician who performed skillfully to mitigate distress but also
acted as teache r, sharing knowledge and power. Doctor and patient
then engaged in the mutual endeavor of grasping the problem and
accomplishing the healing. Sages describe  a state witho ut suering and a way to get there. That way is not to search for a single remedy, a panacea , a “magic
bullet,” but to engage in the ongoing process of learning to become
more animated, more connected: more charged with life. Both
Efrem and I were struck by the notion that Chinese medicine was
about just that—striving toward greater integration through the
cultivation of Qi. The excitement was and remains that Chinese
medicine oers an approach that includes, yet moves beyond, issues
of physical health. By the summer of 1972, at a time when few Americans had heard
of acupuncture, and at the risk of being considered cultural
renegades, we struggled to cross over ethnic, social, and intellectual
barriers, rivete d by the idea that with Chinese medicine we could
both understand the world and change it. Just as my younger sister
was nishing medical school, we were exploring foreign territory,
making our journey east. THE NATURE OF  REALITY  SHIFTS
After the acupuncture seminar at Esalen, the intrigue escalated. Efrem and I read what we could, but it wasn’t enough. Like hounds
on the scent of a fox, we were pulled irresistibly by the magnet of
Chinese philosophy and driven to discover whether these ancient
healing techniques really worked. At that time no schools oered
study program s in the Unite d States, and China had not yet been
opened to American students . So we traveled to England  in the fall
of 1972 to enroll in the College of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture.We were part of the rst class of Americans to study at this
college. Half of our group were Western medical docto rs. We all
went through major readjustm ents during our course of study as our
presumptions about the nature of reality, ourselves, health, and
healing were pulled apart, stretched, and rewoven into new cloth. I began to experience mysel f as a little tao, a galaxy of internal
planets spinning through time and space. These planets became
named as ve transformativ e phases: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal , and
Water . Each one functioned as an energetic eld linked with the
visceral organs of Liver, Heart, Spleen, Lung, and Kidney , whose lines
of force coursed through channels in my body like a lattice of
waterways crosses the earth. Physiological functions, personality
characteristics, even single impulses could be classied within this
new language. We came to recognize that each class member could be
characterized by the attributes of one Organ  and Phase . For example,
an enthusiastic cardiologist became easily excited, had a nervous
laugh, and liked to give running commentary about his experience
as he lived it. We identied him as expressing the inuence of Fire. A methodical and serious graduate student who dressed fastidiously
and set high standards for herself and others reected the inuence
of Metal  A dynamic, impatient psychologist who took the initiative
to set up the school’s rst training clinic exhibited typical Wood
characteristics. A socially reticent, intense nonconformist who
plunged into the learning, absorbing all he could in his fertile mind,
manifested a strong Water  aspect. And an internist able to heal with
his compassion ate touch and smile, who assumed care of us when
the stress of our studies took its toll, had the phase of Earth  speaking
through his personality. Just as I could see myself as a little tao, our class too became a
projection of a single body. We each performed our own function, a
distinct role appropriate to our individual nature. Our physical
shape, the quality of our movement and manner, our symptoms, the
tastes and avors we preferred, the odor of our esh, the color of
our tongue, the sound of our voice, the feeling of our pulse, revealedways our persona organized and expressed itself within the context
of these new categories. THE REALITY OF  MEDICINE  SHIFTS
We experienced a radical shift of focus from what we’d known. We
learned to feel the pulse in six positions on the radial artery of both
wrists, each position corresponding to a channel associated with an
Organ Network . This was particularly dramatic for the doctors. Since
medical school they had accepted as an article of faith and an
assumption of science the existence of only one pulse, which
reected the function of the heart alone. The notion that the shape,
force, and rhythm of the blood pulsing through the radial artery was
not merely determined by the activity of the heart, but was the
outcome of the interaction of all forces coalescing in the human
body at any given time, diverged sharply from their medical
education. Alongside our training, we were experiencing acupuncture for our
own maladies. In the midst of a particularly intense week of
uninterrupted study, Efrem felt ushed, agitated, and had the
unpleasant sensation of his pulse pounding throughout his body. His
blood pressure was abnormally high, 140/90. Our teacher inserted
one needle along the outer edge of his hand and another  along the
front border of his neck muscle. The change was striking—within
minutes his blood pressure normalized, the pounding ceased, and he
felt an expansive calm. What had been a pervasive mood of anxiety
and melancholy became one of exhilaration and repose. He
experienced acupuncture as simultaneously alleviating the distress
in his body and restoring his good humor. This imprinted  upon him
that within this medical system, mental discomforts need not be
ignored nor invalidated as being “only in your mind.”
CHANGING  DEFINITIONSAlthough I had always consid ered myself to be in perfect health, my
self-image was chipped away  by the chisel of this new perspective. As a child, whenever I had a snie my father gave me a powerful
pill to squelch it, and as a result, I never got sick. Later, even though
my stamina was capricious and I had low blood pressure,  my father
considered this a blessing—no need to worry about high blood
pressure. In my family, as long as you weren’t sick, you were
healthy. But bothersome aspects of my physical and emotional life
that I’d previously dismissed  as idiosyncratic began to appear as
lifelong signs of a pattern that betrayed less than optimal function. It dawned on me that although I was not sick, I could feel better. For years my hands and feet were ice blocks under the covers at
night and my lower back ached periodically. Cuts became easily
infected, and frequent canker sores burned in my mouth, aggravated
by the sweets that I craved. Sometimes a lingering hunge r persisted
after meals, and in the evenings when I was tired, my hearing
diminished to the hum of a dim tuner. Restful sleep eluded me if I
remained awake past eleven P.M., and rising the next morning could
seem an Olympian feat. Yet more limiting than any of these minor
body aictions was a nagging sense of fatigue. There was
constantly more on my agenda than I had energy to accomplish. In
the early afternoon I could be easily overcome by a mudd led feeling
that left me sluggish, unable to focus, and unproductive for several
hours of prime time during the work day. I felt hopeful and
optimistic but lacked the steady strength to fulll my ambitions. I had never assembled these  vague complaints. My father would
have dismissed  them since they didn’t make particular sense within
his framework, and besides, there was nothing in his repertoire to
“x” any of them. From his point of view I was normal. But within
the context of Chinese medi cine, each sign and symptom assumed
new meaning. Although Western lab tests would have indicated normal kidney
function, the coldness, tiredness, and hearing loss represented a
weakness of Water , the Kidney Network . The sores in my mouth and
surge of energy late at night  were characteristic of an imbalance ofWood , the Liver Network  Sleeping problems were associated with a
deciency of Fire, the Heart Network . Overall, my character was
most dominated by Earth , the Spleen Network . A sunny disposition,
an eagerness to help other people, and constant reection upon how
to generally improve the human condition are traits of Earth . A
xation with details, a somet imes obsessive need to get things done,
and that sudden soggy, muddled feeling are associated with
disharmonies of Earth . As I received acupuncture treatment, and later herbal medicine,
my resources increased and steadied; in addition, I could relieve my
monthly irritability, water retention, and insomnia. As my
complaints receded, I experienced myself as a more eective captain
of my vessel, guiding fate by altering the givens, assuming control
over tendencie s and reactions that I had presumed came with my
territory. All of us established relationships between physical and emotional
patterns, connecting what had otherwise seemed unrelated. In
Western medicine, cold extremities, back pain, hearing loss, and
fatigue are not associated with each other or with the kidney. Troubled sleep, excitability, and laughter are not associated with the
heart. Menstru al problems are unrelated to the liver. But in Chinese
medicine, a weak Kidney  may mean not only having a backache,
poor hearing, and fatigue, but also being fearful, stingy, withdrawn,
and apathetic. The Organ Networks  of Chinese medicine were not
equivalent to the anatomical organs of Western medicine. Organ
Networks  were dened functionally, not structurally. As such, they
included emotional and mental function as well as physiological
performance, and even their physiology was dened dierently. Furthermore, within this logic, problems are not isolated from the
context in which they occur, so a single symptom is understood in
relation to the entire body environment. The strategy is to adjust the
eld, reorganizing the process out of which symptoms grow,
coercing them into retreat by eliminating the milieu in which they
thrive. Stimulated and unsettled, many of us underwent personal as well
as professional transformation. The sun still rose each morning andtraded places with the moon at night, but our perception of
ourselves and the world around us altered. After reading these chapters, you will also learn how to interpret
yourself within  the context of these concepts so that you can say, “I
am an Earth  type who has conict with Wood  and weakness in
Water . My primary therapeutic focus will be in these areas.” That is
a purpose of this book. THE CROSS-FERTILIZATION OF  MEDICINE:  EAST GOES WEST AND  WEST
GOES EAST
From the late Middle Ages on, traditional Chinese medicine trickled
into foreign lands. A compre hensive Chinese herbal text written in
1587 found its way into the hands of German physicians around
1605. In 1810 a French physician named Louis Berlioz reported
successfully treating neurogenic diseases with acupuncture. In 1929,
after serving as French consul in China, Dr. Soulie de Mourant
translated a Chinese text, furthering the practice of acupuncture in
France. During the mid-1800s Chinese immigrants building railro ads and
mining gold in the United States brought their medicine with them. For the most part it rema ined within the Chinese community. However, a few exceptions occurred in the Northwest, where local
settlers beneted from the care of Chinese doctors. Historical
records from the towns of John Day, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho,
indicate that Chinese doctors successfully treated respiratory,
digestive, and reproductive infections, as well as arthritis and
symptoms of cardiovascular disease. Pioneer women who were
unable to conceive were helped to bear healthy children. Meanwhile, European and American missionaries had been
exporting Western medicine to China. The Chinese were very
impressed with surgical technique, vaccinations, and the means of
hygiene and sanitation that helped reduce the spread of infectious
diseases, wound sepsis, and the mortality of women followingchildbirth. Western industrial and medical technology came to be
associated with progress. By the time penicillin was developed in
the 1940s, traditional medical institutions in China had been
signicantly replaced by the more highly prized Western medical
schools. In 1949, the year of the Chinese revolution, there were 10,000
Western-trained doctors for 400 million people. At this time the
550,000 traditional doctors recovered their stature within the
medical establ ishment because of the dire need for more doctors
and a fervent desire to reassert faith in China’s own cultural legacy. Since 1949 traditional medicine has been revived and incorporated
as a mandatory part of the training in many modern medical
schools. Resea rchers there now investigate the bioch emistry of
herbal constituents and the electrophysiology of acupuncture points
to trace their impact on the healing mechanisms of the body. Still, in many life-threatening situations, only Western medical
and surgical techniques are appropriate. Functional disorders
constitute a middle ground where either system may be elected. In
chronic degenerative illnesses for which Western medicine has little
to oer, traditional medicine is a welcome option. Some Chinese
hospitals accom modate alternate oors for Western and traditional
care, with doctors selecting what best suits their patients’ needs. In
some circumstances both systems work in concert. For instance,
Western surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy is used to control
cancer, while traditional Chinese medicine is used to strengthen the
body and enhance immunity , enabling the person to better tolerate
treatment. During the 1950s and 1960s when traditional medicine was being
reintegrated in its homeland, travel, commerce, and exchange
between the United States and China was highly restricted. In 1972,
the year when then-Presid ent Nixon unstrapped the political
restraints upon our relationship with the People’s Republic,
acupuncture needles passed from East to West. At this time our class
of Americans at the College  of Acupuncture was preparing to use
these needles on American bodies.While in China , New York Times  journa list James Reston had an
emergency appendectomy, and his postoperative abdominal pain
was relieved by an acupun cture needle in his leg. It appeared
particularly spectacular because it was so little understood. Realizing that Qi travers es the body through channels, it becomes
less enigmatic that toothache s can be relieved by the stimulation of
a point along a pathway that connects the mouth to the hand or
foot. Learning that white fungus reduces blood cholestero l levels, it
no longer seems a miracle that people who live in regions in China
where it is part of the diet have lower incidences of heart  attacks. It
is comm on knowledge among Chinese that pseudoginseng powder
stops hemorrhage, chrysanthemum ower tea will relieve a bilious
headache, and black mushrooms increase immunity. Since the dawn of this century the West has been exporting
medical techn ology and pharmaceuticals to the East. In the last
quarter of this century the medicinal treasures of the Orient have
been imported to the West. In 1976 Efrem and I were among the
rst two hund red and ten practitioners to receive an acupuncture
license from the California State Board of Medical Quality
Assurance. Nationally there are now between six and ten thousand
practitioners of Chinese medicine, and two dozen other states have
instituted licensure programs. Two decades ago there were no
colleges of Chinese medicine  in this country; now there  are more
than twenty. What began as a handful of books on the subject has
grown to a library of more than four hundred titles, many of which
are translations of Chinese texts. MIRACLES  EAST AND  WEST
The advantages of integrating Western and Chinese medicine were
dramatized for Efrem and me following the birth of our son in 1975. Born with two gaping holes  in a swollen heart, Bear’s life would
have been eclipsed without surgical intervention. After diagnosing
his problem by injecting a dye into his heart that projected an image
on a video screen, our cardiologist determined it was possible forthe holes to be closed with Dacron patches. If he had been born
twenty years earlier when open-heart surgery for infants had not yet
been develope d, his heart could not have been repaired. We were
grateful that miracles existed in the West. Following surgery, because of his fragile constitution, he was
subject to countless bouts of bronchitis and upper- respiratory
infection. In San Francisco we studied herbs with local Chinese
doctors. When  Bear was able to swallow herbal pills, they became
incorporated into his routine along with breakfast and lunch. We
used certain formulas for overcoming acute illness and others as a
tonic for strengthening him, improving his resistance. Eventually he
rebued the onslaught of winter colds even when his schoolmates
succumbed. Now as a teenager Bear radiates the health we had
hoped for from his birth. We were grateful for miracles of the East
as well. In 1980 , after eight years of practicing acupuncture, Efrem went
to China to further study the use of herbs and experience Chinese
medicine in its native habitat. A Western-style dispensary stood
alongside the herbal pharmacy at the Kunming Railway Workers
Hospital. A special kitchen brewed individual herb teas, delivering
fresh medicine to both inpatients and out-patients. Efrem’s teache r, Dr. Zheng Wen Tao, was rst trained as a
Western physician. Later he was asked to return to schoo l to study
traditional medicine. He combined classical knowledge  with the
ndings of modern research,  producing herbal formulas particularly
eective for treating cardiovascular and immune disorders. Dr.
Zheng Wen Tao was partic ularly renowned for his treatment of
intractable diseases. Efrem witnessed the gradual remission of
scleroderma in a young woman after one year of herbal treatment. Scleroderma, an autoimmune disease, is marked by the progressive
hardening of connective tissue, considered both fatal and
untreatable by Western medicine. This young woman had been told
that she had one year to live. Instead, during that year she reversed
the course of her illness and regained health. Zheng Wen Tao is the
epitome of the modern Chine se medical hero, able to unite modern
science with classical tradition. When Efrem returned home, weexpanded our use of herbal medicine in the treatment of our
acupuncture patients, setting up an herbal pharmacy in our
acupuncture clinic. A F OREIGN  CULTURE  PLANTED ON  HOME SOIL
Some people tend to dismiss Chinese medicine for not conforming to
the modern medical model, while others tend to romanticize and
mystify it. Some discount it because it is not modern, others revere
it because it is old. The former group considers it eccentric
quackery, and the latter considers it a panacea. It is clear to us that
it is a system unto itself, altogether distinct from a trendy health fad
or other therapies considere d to be holistic or alternat ive. It has
endured for centuries not only because its techniques produce
tangible result s, but because it embodies a coherent philosophy that
integrates many aspects of human life. Western medicine has had a monopoly not only on our medicine
cabinets, but also on our minds. Now other possibilities exist. More
and more people are receiving acupuncture, so far several million
Americans, and Chinese herbs are nding the way onto their
shelves. Within the next decade medicinal foods will be simmering
in stainless-ste el pots, making the exotic aromas and avors of
China as familiar to us as chicken soup. Americans, like the Chinese,
are quite pragmatic—Chinese medicine meets their need, so people
try it; it helps, so they come back for more. By familiarizing yourself with its concepts, you will be able to
judge if and when it is a tting option for you. Spotting yourself
within its categories will help you better understand your behavior
and feelings, the ways you express your health, and the ways you
fall ill. By the end, we hope you will be able to interpret yourself
amply enough to acquire the rudimentary know-how to initiate
personal change. *Specially dened Chinese medical terms are italicized and capitalized throug hout the text
to dieren tiate them from their commo n meaning, such as heart as an anatom ically located
organ in the chest versus Heart  as an Organ Network , or wind that dances through the trees
versus Wind  that represents an adverse pathological phenomenon. The glossary will assist
in clarication. OceanofPDF.comPhilosophy in the West: The Doctor as MechanicCHAPTER TWO
PHILOSOPHY IN THE  WEST: THE DOCTOR  AS
MECHANIC
Cartesianism is the unspoken philosophical substratum of
contemporary medicine—the source of many of its great
strengths and equally of its deciencies. Pellegrino and Thomasma  
A Philosophical                    
Basis of Medical Practice     
BECAUSE OUR PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD INFLUENCES HOW WE LIVE IN it, our
consciousness sculpts reality. Conversely, our experience shapes our
thinking, so our reality molds consciousness. Our minds create what
is real, and our lived experiences generate our thoughts. There is a
reciprocity between beliefs and observations—what we look for
aects what we see, so describing “just the way things are” from the
Chinese and Western vantage  point is not necessarily the same. Each
makes sense of the body according to a dierent set of beliefs. It became clear to us that to penetrate Chinese medicine we
needed to examine how reality itself was dened, East and West. Because taken-for-granted assumptions are buried just beneath the
skin of our conscious awareness, in this chapter we peel that skin
back to expose our Western philosophic presumptions about how
things are. Upon understanding ourselves, we can approach the
unfamiliar and proceed to probe the East on its own terms. SCIENCE . THE NEW RELIGION OF THE  WESTDuring the Middle Ages, people in Western Europe had a unied
view of their universe: seeing themselves as an integral part of
everything that was both seen and unseen. They were connected
with Heaven through God and with Earth through Nature. The
break with this organic sensibility came with the decline of feudal
society as cities grew where there were once feudal kingdoms. As
the pervasive authority of the Roman Catholic church was
undermined by the Protestant Reformation, the people of Europe
believed they could attain mastery in the world through their own
willful eorts. No longer were they solely dependent on the spiritual
community of the Church. In the Christianity of this new era, the realm of Heaven existed
outside of Nature, apart from it, barely within human reach. Earth
and Heaven were divided into separate realms. The dark, sinister,
mysterious forces of Earth were juxtaposed with the enlightened,
righteous, and supernatural forces of Heaven. Instead of being an
ally, Nature became an adversary to be overcome and conquered. Man stood outside of it, apart from and above it. The Earth was no
longer intimat ely connected to the life of our own body, instead it
became an object that could be manipulated and exploited. Human
beings were the battleground  in which Man and Nature,  good and
evil, spirit and body, wrestled with each other. A unied reality was
sacriced for dominion over Nature, for technology, for “progress.”
A schism occurred between the sacred and the secular, Heaven
and Earth, life and death. Before this, with God for protection and
guidance, it was unnecessary to question and understand Nature. But without divine providence, the unpredictable chaos of Nature
was perceived as forbidding and dangerous. Death, associated with
the dark forces, became irreconcilable with life, rather than an
inevitable transition in the cycle of existence. The best protection
against Nature  was through domination and control: to gain power
over Nature was to conquer death. 1 A new set of values and beliefs
was created to explain and organize the world. This new “religion”
was that of science, and its priests were the mathe maticians,
physicists, and mechanical engineers. 2DESCARTES:  NATURE AND THE  BODY AS MACHINE
In the West the philosophy of science is based on the premise that
humans are separate from nature, and that the world, like a
machine, can be dismantled and reduced into constituent parts. Reality is located in the tangible structure of matter: that which can
be measured, quantied, and analyzed. Events occur according to
unchanging laws. The foundation for this scientic thinking was
buried in the soil of Aristotle’s “empirical materialism,” excavated
during the Renaissance. With Aristotle, reality came to mean that
which could be substantiated materially. Matter was understood to
be xed and unchanging, therefore real. In the seventeenth century, the French mathematician Descartes
ushered in the Western scientic revolution. His introduction of
analytic, reduc tive reasoning formed the basis of a new philosophy
of science, which became the philosophy of modern medicine as
well. His think ing had such profound inuence that the principles
underpinning modern science came to be referred to as Cartesian. Descartes believed there could be absolute, certain truth,
commenting, “All science is certain, evident knowledge. We reject
all knowledge which is mere ly probable and judge that only those
things should be believed which are perfectly known and about
which there can be no doubts.” 3 Through the use of reduc tive,
deductive logic, Descartes felt on the verge of comprehending the
fundamental workings of the universe. He conceptualized the world
and everything in it as a machine, stating, “I do not recognize any
dierence between the machines made by craftsmen and various
bodies that nature alone composes.” 4 Mechanical laws were said to
universally govern all phenomena. The exact sciences formulated to
dominate and control nature were applied to human beings as well. Descartes considered the human body a machine, likening a healthy
man to a well-made clock. He also erected a rm division between
mind and matter, asserting, “There is nothing in the concept of body
that belongs to the mind; and nothing in that of mind that belongs
to the body.” 5This mechanis tic view of nature led to the xed and absolute
physical laws devised by astronomer and mathemetician Isaac
Newton, which  outlined the cause-and-eect method of explaining
the material universe. This logic formed the basis of the scientic
method, which  even today remains essentially unchanged. Perhaps
unaware that many logical systems of knowledge exist, most
Westerners consider this to be the only valid way of understanding
the world. Within this worldview, nature and humans are machines
governed by mechanical laws: systems that do work, tools of
production. Western medicine, correspondingly, is the study of how
the human machine works. When people are like machines, doctors
become like mechanics. The mechanic occasionally performs routine
maintenance but mostly intervenes to execute emergency repairs. He plunges into the working parts, replacing the nonfunctioning
elements, and puts the mach ine back into working order. It follows
that the doctor as mechanic xes the broken body-machine. In this schema , the body is reduced to structural parts, proceeding
from organs to tissues, tissue s to cells, cells to molecules. The doctor
as mech anic separates the whole into parts in order to discern the
nature, proportion, and funct ion of each constituent. Sorting out the
parts enabled early Western doctors to conceptualize a diseased
entity as the faulty compone nt and sever it from the organism as a
whole. They could thereby remove it or treat it in isolation from
other organ and tissue parts. THE RISE OF WESTERN  MEDICINE
The ndings of the early anatomists validated the mechanistic view
that the body is made out of distinct and separate parts, connected
and yet autonomous. They divided the body into systems analogous
to mechanical processes that corresponded precisely with structural
descriptions of organs and tissues. The circulatory system comprises
the heart as a mechanical pump that pushes the blood through thepipes of the veins and arteries. The lungs are like a bellows, the
nervous system like an elaborate electrical telephone network. For the mechanic, it is best if the parts of the mach ine are
standardized and uniform. That way the parts are interchangeable,
easily replaced, and the ways in which they break down become
predictable from one body to the next. Standardized diseases
develop from established causes, and protocols of treatment are
xed. Uniform parts sit on the shelf. This view focuses entirely on
the ways in which all people are alike and tends to overlook the
ways in which people are unique and dissimilar. When a group of
people receives the same diagnosis, they receive the same treatment. Science and industry have enabled medicine to be practiced on a
mass basis. The same mechanistic philosophy that inspired mass
production in industry also inspired mass medicine and health care. The marriage of science, industry, and medicine spawned  an age
of innovation and specializa tion. As a result the human body and
mind were divided and reduced into ever more diverse and rened
areas of investigation. For example, chemists began  to perceive the body as a chemical
factory controlled and regulated through the balance of molecular
compounds. The practice of pharmaceutical therapy was the by-
product of the tremendous discoveries made in chemistry. Penicillin,
aspirin, digitalis, cortisone, and smallpox vaccine were just a
fraction of the wonder drugs discovered to treat specic diseases
and remove specic pathogens or causative factors. The physicists,
on the other hand, perceived  the body as an atomic structure and
developed radiation technology for diagnosis and treatment. The X-
ray machine furthered diagnostic precision and inhibited the spread
of many cancers. For their part, the engineers  perceived the body as a mechanical
structure composed of discrete parts. They invented surgical tools
and methods for removing and replacing faulty parts. The body as a
machine could be stopped, taken apart, repaired, and put back
together. Rema rkable develo pments in surgical technolog y enabled
doctors to do open-heart repair, skin grafts, appendectomy, cesarean
section, attachment of severed limbs, and bone setting. Theseinnovations contributed to the resolution of potentially devastating
health-care crises and constituted the wonders of modern medicine. The Body As Machine
THE NARROWING  DEFINITION OF  DISEASEAnother fundamental shift occurred in the mid-1800s, when Louis
Pasteur located  the origin of disease outside the body, in the form of
germs. His analytic research isolated a particular prior cause,
triggering a given eect. The germ theory of disease postulated that
a single microorganism could produce specic symptoms of disease
in healthy organisms. This theory helped to explain epidemics and
plagues and to develop eective remedies against them. However, this “doctrine of specic cause” became generally
invoked to explain all diseases. And because only the single cause
was sought, the multitude of contributing factors occurring
simultaneously in any given sick person were ignored. That the total
condition of the person profo undly aected his or her susceptibility
to a disease was excluded by this conceptual model. For example, insulin was discovered when experimenters were
able to produce the high blood sugar symptoms of diabetes in
healthy animals by damaging the pancreas. According to the
doctrine of specic cause, it was then concluded that the cause of
diabetes was a deciency in the production of insulin by the
pancreas. This was a major lifesaving discovery of modern medicine. As remarkable  as it was, however, the belief that insulin was a cure
prevented people from searc hing for the real basis of the disease,
the degenerative course of which remained unaltered. The narrow view of specic cause has limited the scope and
eectiveness of modern medicine, which often equated the control
of symptoms with the cure of the disease. This belief in single cause
diverted medicine from an appreciation of the context and
complexity of human process from which degenerativ e diseases
emerged. Although many involved in health care are increasingly
aware that disease is not separable from the human life that cradles
it, the ideology of Western medicine does not accommodate this
insight. Referri ng to the “crisis in health care,” H. R. Holman, M.D.,
of Stanford University cites shortcomings and suggests the need for
philosophical and social remedies:Longevity has changed little, and the major illnesses such as
malignancy and cardiovascular disease remain
unimpeded.…  Illnesses disproportionately aect the poor,
major environmental and occupational causes of illnesses
receive little attention and less action  … clearly, there is a crisis
in health care, both in its eect upon health and in its
cost.…  Some medical outcomes are inadequate not because
appropriate technical interventions are lacking, but becau se our
conceptual thinking is inadequate. 6
Modern medicine directs its gaze through a microscope so that
detail is gained  at the expens e of a restricted visual eld.
_OceanofPDF.com_Between_Heaven_and_Earth_-_Harriet_Beinfield.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        More praise for
Between Heaven and Earth
“A lucid introduction to the subtle, strange, and eminently useful
ideas and methods of Orient al medicine  … The authors transmit a
unique understanding of the ways in which Chinese medicine
enables us to know more intimately the particular nature of our
humanity. ”
Ted Kaptchuk                                        
Author of The Web That Has No Weaver
“Opens the door to a fresh new world of understanding your health. With the increasing demand for a layman’s book on Oriental
medicine, Between Heaven and Earth  lls an important gap and has
been a long time needed. ”
Dr. Gurusant S. Khalsa                         
President                                             
American Association of Acupuncture  
and Oriental Medicine                       
“I have read Between Heaven and Earth  with great admiration and
interest. …  It is both encyclopedic in range and completely
accessible to the lay reader. The authors have done the public an
immense service. ”
Richard Selzer, M. D. Author of Mortal Lessons
“Between Heave n and Earth  represents a remarkable blend of
philosophy, medicine and history. … I learned a great deal. ”
Norman Cousins“A fabulous and important book  … Well-written, profound, and
practical. ”
Michael Tierra, N.
Ted Kaptchuk
Who wrote the book "The Web That Has No Weaver"?
Dr. Gurusant S. Khalsa
Who is the president of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine?
The book provides a comprehensive overview of Chinese medicine and its concepts, and encourages the reader to explore and apply its principles to improve their own well-being.
What is the main focus of the book "Between Heaven and Earth"?
The authors highlight the fundamental difference between the two approaches, emphasizing that Western medicine focuses on the tangible, measurable aspects of the human body, whereas Chinese medicine considers the interconnectedness and interdependence of all forces, including the emotional and mental dimensions.
What is the main difference between Western and Chinese medicine, according to the authors?
The book aims to demonstrate the importance of integrating Western and Eastern approaches to achieve a more holistic understanding of the human body and the environment, emphasizing the need to transcend the limitations of modern medicine and adopt a more comprehensive and adaptive approach to health and wellness.
What is the main theme of the book, according to the authors?