This was a great post by Bob over at EF. TCM/qigong books in English are notorious for being poorly researched and poorly written. This includes all of the well-known authors that people usually rely on. It’s just a minefield really.
The underlined and bolded parts of this quote are quite interetsing. Unschuld is a man who is fluent in Chinese and is an expert on his subject. He is one of the new breed of authors that is trying to uphold the highest academic standards when writing about TCM. He, Wiseman, and a few others are doing this and they simply break new ground with every book that they publish.
Simply put, too much that has been written about TCM and qigong in English reflect the discontent people feel with Western medicine rather than the reality of TCM/qigong. These books paint an idealized (hence dangerous) portrait of their subject matter. Don’t rely on them!
Here’s the quote:
The interviews with Paul U. Unschuld are also interesting:
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives2004/jul/07bauerunschuld.html
“To be able to understand the paths Western and Chinese traditions of health care have taken, it is essential to study the cultural environments in which they have developed. Medicine cannot be understood without its external history. Anybody who criticizes biomedicine for whatever shortcomings or deficits it has - and it has many - and wishes to change things or create a better medicine, will end up as a Don Quixote if he does not take the cultural environment, or external history, of medicine into account. An awareness of the close links between the conceptual foundations of health care traditions and their cultural environment makes one understand, first, that medicine cannot change without changes in the world view and/or existential experiences of a given population, and, second, that certain patients cannot be successfully treated by means of therapies legitimated by a world view that is not their own. What it comes down to is the following: to study the cultural history of human reactions to existential threats such as illness and the danger of early death means to study the essence of the human condition. To reach an understanding of the human condition and assist one’s patients to overcome episodes of disease, or to prevent disease - that is the difference between an intellectual physician and a mechanic.”
PU: Why do I teach medical students the history of European and Chinese medicine? Medicine develops not only with its cultural environment, it also develops amidst a political arena. Anybody who grew up in a Western society and develops an interest in Chinese traditional medicine is confronted with an import from a foreign culture. How does he or she know whether the product taught by his teacher, whether Chinese or Western, is genuine? How does he or she know whether the literature offered reflects true Chinese medicine, or the views of some more or less ill-informed writer? It is a fact that more than 95 percent of all literature published in Western languages on Chinese medicine reflect Western expectations rather than Chinese historical reality. Bestsellers are usually written by those who know no Chinese, have no access to Chinese medical history, and have never - or at best for short periods - been to China.
There is, I wish to emphasize, nothing wrong with these books, as they were informed by visions of an ideal health care presumably developed in China. As such, these books tell us something about what is lacking in Western biomedicine, and what is expected by many as a remedy to cure an ailing Western health care system. This way, these books fulfill an important function. They suggest ways to improve or circumvent biomedicine, and offer ideas and strategies that may be helpful for many. Nevertheless, while they reflect Western yearnings, they fail to reflect the historical truth of Chinese medicine. Chinese medical history is, indeed, a huge treasure box, and given that TCM has selected only parts of its contents, serious historical research may turn up many more.
7 responses so far ↓
1 li muhua // Dec 7, 2006 at 11:53 am
[sorry if this is a double post i tried to post it last night and it is not showing up. feel free to delete one if it is.]
First I would like to say that I think you missed the point of the quote. He is not saying that the info is necessarily incorrect, he is pointing out that it is usually filtered through aspirations of disillusioned Westerners. As an acupuncturist who trained in China and studies qigong with a master originally from Shanghai, and I am currently in Taipei, let me offer this example. Chinese medicine, as everyone probably knows, says that each organ has a corresponding emotion. Some Western authors and patients take this to the extreme of acupuncture almost becoming a therapy session. But it has been my experience in China in the clinics that the role ,and really definition of, emotions is alot different than the Western one. So sometimes you get these Freudian analyses of organ syndromes that really don’t exist in Chinese medical history. I think that is an example of these authors inserting their desire to have a medical system that addresses their emotions more than the current Western model.
Secondly, I think there are very qualified teachers, Chinese and non-Chinese, in the Western world that can communicate Chinese theories effectively in English. Do you feel that because you don’t understand the complete history of a move in taiji, how it has evolved, how came up with it, what was socio-economic background inh which it was created to fully use it?
I would have to take issue with his 95% of books, or least see his sampling. I think if you take a look at sites, like http://www.redwingbooks.com, you will see that there are very many, very well written and informed books on Chinese medicine. Most of the books are geared toward the TCM practioner and not available in regular bookstores in America (without special order), so until I see what his sample is, I have to wonder if he just pulled that number from the top of his head.
I am not sure if you know, but Unschuld is a professor of medical history at the Univeristy of Munich, and while he is the most popular academic outside academic cirlces, there are academics, like Nathan Sivin, who have some major concerns with parts of his scholarship. Below are some quotes from a review of Unschuld’s Medicine in China series.
Essay review. By: Sivin, Nathan. ISIS: Journal of the History of Science in Society, Dec90, Vol. 81 Issue 309, p722, 10p; (AN 9103182288)
“The first two volumes, despite their broad scope, cite a very small number of primary sources…and little of the most important scholarship. In the third, the author’s claim for the paramount importance of the _Nan Jing_ ignores slightly later syntheses, differing in scope, content, and character, that also shaped classical thought…Unschuld notes in another connection that the Shang han tsa ping lun (Treatise on cold damage an dmiscellaneous disorders; between 196 and 220) brought some the Inner Canon’s concepts to bear on drup therapy, but he does not recognize this as a fourth historic act of synthesis.
Unschuld’s judgements about therapy are, with afew exceptions, built on the pen-ts’ao genre alone. He ignores the rich data on pharmaceuticals in the much larger prescription literature. The information about and excerpts from the hundred pharmaceutical works in Volume II often come not from the books themselves but from standard Japanese reference works of 1819 and 1958. Not having read the originals, Unschuld is often unaware of what they have to say elsewhere about technique or context. Some of his secondary sources are notoriously unreliable. A translation of a sixteenth-century source is reproduced without change from J.J. de Groot’s _Religious Systems of China_(1892), which misquotes the Chinese text, misreads the authour’s name, and misses a main point of the meaning (Vol. I pp. 219-220).
The analyses of “socioeconomic and sociopolitical realities” are mostly not constructed afresh to meet the needs of this book, but come from university history textbooks of the late 1960s, supplementsed by only a little recent scholarship. The distribution of secondary sources on medicine is very uneven; strongest in the work of a few first-rate Japanese scholars, sparing in citations of the best European and American publications on Chinese medicine, and largely oblivious of the most important scholarship published in China. For instance, Chung-hua i-shih tsa-chih, the Chinese journal of medical history that has published more than seven hundred essays since 1947, is not cited once. This neglect leads the author to perpetrate old errors, and to give out-of-date bibliographical information for his primary sources……
….But human therapeutic preferences do not remain an unknown quantity in these volumes. Unschuld explains almost everything. His explanations assume that the fortunes of therapeutic tendencies and schools depend on “social variables.” Some readers may conclude-although the author does not go so far-that the various therapeutic systems were either a mass delusion of doctors unable to recognize their failures or were unrelated to actual health care. I doubt that one can avoid such reductionism without stressing that medicine was formed by the interplay between ideas, community values, and healing as experienced by therapists and patients. Unschuld offers instead a most curious metaphor; a “durable paradigmatic core” of explanation “formed by the different socioeconomic facts and sociopolitical ideologies,” with a “soft coating” of specific medical knowledge (Vol I, pp.5, 13). The clinic does enter his explanations. If it has a place in this candy-bar model, it can only be in the creamy milk-chocolate coating”
pp 724-5
The whole review is ten pages. Sorry for the long quotes but I wanted to try to capture a couple of points that Sivin was making. I am not sure if you have heard of Nathan Sivin, but he has been the leading Chinese medicine scholar since Needham. He was at the University of Pennsylvania and just went into emeritus status, i think he is 81 or 82 years old this year. Here is a link to his CV
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/curr.html
2 chessman71 // Dec 7, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Wow, thanks for the lengthy reply. Your commnet got flagged by my anti-spam software because it contained two links.
I appreciate the scholarly review of Unschuld’s work, but it doesn’t really diminish the importance of what he’s saying IMO. I wrote lots of book reviews in grad school too and I recognise the standard criticism of sources, etc., etc. This is how the academic game is played.
And yet, what he’s saying resonates with me. Perhaps the situation is improving as far as books go, but that is because it was so bad to begin with.
3 li muhua // Dec 7, 2006 at 9:57 pm
1) Unschuld his himself a professor and his work is academic, meant for academics and that is why this review from a peer reviewed journal is of importance.
2)Reread some of the criticism. The sources he is using are sometimes incorrect, and notoriously so. Did Unschuld not know the information was incorrect? Sources are very important here because he choose sources that are incorrect, in Chinese Lit and chinese history it is not the book itself but where the book came from in history, what dynasty printed it etc that lets us know whether it is an accurate copy of the original source.
3)Again I question his 95%.Is talking about bestsellers, ie fluff, then yes it is probably accurate. But there are large amounts of books that are well informed about Chinese medicine, and I would have to see his sample before I take his remark as fact, especially taking into consideration his crappy sources in other areas.
One sometimes has to wonder how good Unschuld’s Chinese ability is if he continues to avoid important Chinese sources while constantly incorrect ones.
Can I ask if you have ever studied Chinese medicine in setting where you needed sources other than what you casually find on the nieghborhood bookstore? I suspect his assumptions ring true to you because you encounter this in MA literature in the West, but while he makes a good point about the filtering of knowledge through Western eyes (but just read Polanyi we all filter, true objectivity is unattainable, even how we frame our questions brings prejudice), I think his assumptioins over done. He is almost pointing to monolithic medical system that really has never existed in China. I just really have trouble with the 95% remark, I really want to see his data. He said Western languages, so maybe books in French and German are pushing up the average, but honestly I dont’ keep up with the best sellers list anymore, I keep to more clinical and academic based books and articles.
With all respect, it doesn’t seem like your chinese medical background is very deep. As a clinician who is back in school to pursue an academic study of Chinese medicine here Taiwan, it really bothers me that someone whose scholarship is suspect is influencing lay opinion is such a strong way. And some us don’t see academia as game, when we see valid criticism of important concern we listen to it and dont’ just blow it off. (sorry if that sounds harsh but I am really passionate about this stuff, my apologies beforehand)
4 chessman71 // Dec 7, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I appreciate your comments. No, my knowledge of TCM isn’t very deep. I haven’t gone much further than reading Nigel Wiseman’s book Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine. But then this blog is called “Formosa Neijia” not “TCM God.”
I’m not setting myself up as some sort of expert on TCM. I just happen to be interested in it and all of my teachers are TCM doctors, so I’m around it a lot.
I respect your supposed credentials as a practicioner and an academic if you really have them (I assume you do), but from a layman’s perspective I’ve found Unschuld’s work to have value. It’s as simple as that and I’m not apologetic about it.
And once again, I know exactly how the academic assassination game goes. I’ve played it before in another academic specialty. People make their reputations by tearing down the scholarship of others just as much as they do by publishing their own scholarship. And you ALWAYS go after the other guys’ sources. That’s just how it’s done. If you’re really an academic, then you know what I’m saying is true. That doesn’t mean I’m blowing off criticism of Unschuld, but I’m not just going to uncritically swallow criticism of him either.
Don’t worry. I’m not out diagnosing anyone based on what Unschuld says. I mainly use TCM theory to understand qigong. Beyond that, it has little use for me.
5 li muhua // Dec 7, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Again I apologize, I am not trying to be confrontational. I only meant to make a point abount your background in Chinese medicine not for diagnosis reasons but your lack of familiarity with chinese medical sources, in English or Chinese, to show that maybe you shouldn’t make such a blanket statement. when you say “well known authors that people usaully rely on”, what authors? Who relies on them? In terms of clinical literature, of course more needs to be written and translated, but no way 95% is not accurate. That is why I would like to see his data, to know how he formed this fact. And I am not sure if you know who Sivin is, but he has been involved in every major academic work with Chinese medicine in the past 40 years. The major academics almost always include a thank to him in their prefaces for help with their manuscript. I realize a cynical approach could be that since Unschuld didn’t consult him he is tearing down, but I think his criticisms are valid and important, especially dealing with sources and lack clinical importance.
Again I was not trying to be confrontational, I really enjoy your blog, probably come here several times a week.
6 chessman71 // Dec 9, 2006 at 5:14 pm
No problem really. I took his comment as being aimed at popular works on qigong and Chinese medicine. You know, stuff that you’d find at Barnes and Noble, not stuff you’d find at the book store you posted a link to.
Obviously great strides have been taken in recent years to improve the quality of publications out there, so perhaps Unschuld’s remarks don’t hold now. Or perhaps he’s just being too general with his comments.
In any event, welcome to the blog and please feel free to keep me on my toes when it comes to TCM. It’s kind of nice to know that ANYONE is reading the TCM/qigong posts. You’ll notice there are few comments and my blogging software says that no one reads them. Sigh.
But I blog about TCM because I firmly believe we must use TCM theory to really understand how qigong works. That’s my aim in studying it for now.
Glad you enjoy blog and I hope you stick around. Take care.
7 Hermann Bohn // Jan 20, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Li Muhua,
as a PhD sinologist from Munich LM University, I can asure you that Unschuld’s knowledge of modern and archaic Chinese is just fine, really fine, much better than that of older sinologists, who got their education under much worse conditions, with less knowledge available.
Concering Unschuld`s research, I took part a little in scanning all modern magazines for TCM (Chinese) for references to the Neijing (his latest works) and it’s secondary literature, believe me, nothing was missed by chance, other than on purpose. Also, to say that Unschuld didn’t read the original works (coming from Sivin?) is just rediculous. He gave translation courses on many primary, original texts for at least 10 consecutive years, that’s the reason why many sinologists like myself went interdisciplinaryly over to the medics department.
I originaly come from the OAS (Seminar on East Asian Studies, sinology) at Munich, not from Unschuld’s institute of history of medicine, but I much more prefer his objective approach to other persons in the field on my own institute (no names, but firends with Sivin), who are too sinicised or too old-fahsioned, who talk about a field they lack qualifications (us sinologists having only rudimentary understanding of medicine).
BTW, you mentioned you are doing acupuncture. That alone does not qualify, either, there are hundreds of natural healers in Europe, who do it after superfical studies in PR China, with doing more wrong than good.
Unschuld’s dobble qualification makes him totally qualified to state about the 95 percent of books, which satisfy a western thurst for alternative medicines. And for sure, he knows what’s on the market, especially in the USA.
So, I myself ain’t a specialist on TCM, I read and translated lots of clasical works into German. My field was philosophy, Zhouyi, and if you asked me about R. Wilhelm, the German missionary, I would only laugh at you, telling that we have made great progress since those times.
But of course, I was also not trying to be confrontational, I really enjoy Dave’s blog, too, and there is no need to bring adademic vanities into play. There are too many schools of thought out there, and Dave’s comment on these vanities are totally correct.
Best regards from Taiwan’s south!
Leave a Comment