Chinese Medicine

So-called ""Chinese medicine,'' as this manual notes, is a systematic scientific discipline, not a grab bag of folk remedies. To combat the flu, a doctor might prescribe any of a dozen highly specific cures depending upon psychic and dynamic factors in the patient. Taking the reader through the rarefied esoterica of impulse points, pathways, function circles and acupuncture, the treatise explains how practitioners of this medical system predict the direction a disease will take and strengthen the individual's own capacity to restore vital energy. Since diagnosis is based directly on bodily functionswithout reference to organs, nerves or the bloodstreamChinese medicine perfectly complements Western practice, according to Porkert, founder of the International Society of Chinese Medicine, and Ullmann, a German journalist. Their suggestion that the Chinese system of preventive care could serve as a model for primary health care deserves scrutiny. (March)