The modern logic of the
TCM Differential Diagnostic Process
AACMAC Brisbane 2007
Australasian Acupuncture and Chinese medicine Annual Conference
by Yan HUANG (Tomas)
The classical theory in TCM literature has been the guideline for practitioners for more than 3300 years. The successful cases against all kinds of sicknesses, ranging from common flu to complicated diseases, shows that the theory is practical and universal. Even in the battle against SARS, it was not one particular herb that saved lives, but the guidelines of this theory that lead to success.
However such a powerful theory was written in ancient scientific terminologies which modern people know little about. How can we educate the general public and beginners who have been overwhelmed with modern scientific concepts and terminologies? This paper introduces a new graphical representation to explain the Differential Diagnostic Process. None of the TCM concepts are modified, we only use graphs to serve as a bridge between ancient and modern science.
We employed a Good & Evil Yin-Yang chart to represent the changes between the Yin and Yang. Cold, Hot, Deficient and Excess are the different possible states of the Yin-Yang combo. Superficial and Internal are different parts of the body and each can have a different Yin-Yang combo, hence can be represented with two different charts. All the different kinds of Differential Diagnostic Processes can be represented in a similar way.
Not only can we explain the TCM theory to modern people with such a representation, we can also apply this ancient old theory to other areas of modern science such as Economics and Business management, to help these systems to achieve stability, efficiency and longevity.