Traditional Chinese Medicine

The earliest Chinese medical texts we have are more than 2,000 years old, and they still provide the basis for many different ways of looking at health, illness and treatment.

Over the centuries, different doctors have emphasized different aspects of the whole Chinese Tradition. Some aspects have been lost, some have been added, and some have been revived after hundreds/thousands of years.

Concepts that Traditional Chinese Medicine have always used include:

1. Diagnosis using the pulse
2. Diagnosis which takes the overall condition of the patient into account
3. Treatment with acupuncture using thin needles 
4. Burning mugwort-leaf fuzz (moxa)
5. Mixtures of herbs 

The Chinese tradition of herbal formulas is possibly the oldest body of herbal knowledge surviving and the idea that illness and its treatment have more to do with “qi” (pronounced “chee”, translated “energy”) than with the physical body.