Review of Chautauqua course #70 on May 26-28, 2004, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, submitted by Dr. Ambrose Leong, Emory & Henry College (6/23/2004).

Teaching Histories of Medicine and Healing in China

Chautauqua course #70

This course is designed for professors interested in offering a course or components of a course on the histories of medicine and the philosophy of healing in China. I chose this course because medicine is closely related to my field of Organic Chemistry and because of my Chinese heritage. This course introduces us to the origin, theory, philosophy and foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM is based on the ideas of “Qi” or “Chi”, “Yin and Yan”. It’s about balancing the body from within as well as harmonizing the body with nature. Western medicine - based on biomedical principles - is more about treating diseases and their symptoms. TCM is more about balancing the forces in the body so the body can resist or prevent diseases. Herbal medicine, exercise, food and acupuncture are means to achieve these goals. Chinese medicine is more than just about healing; it is also a way of life. When filtered through the eyes of western science, medicine and culture, TCM appears irrational, incomprehensible, ineffective and sometimes dangerous. But these ideas are not so impossible if we allow ourselves to look at TCM from a different cultural perspective. In addition to lectures, we also practiced pulse and tongue diagnosis in class. And we went to see a Chinese physician in Chinatown in Boston. Through pulse and tongue examinations and questioning, each of us was diagnosed with various imbalances and given herbal medicine prescriptions. We filled the prescriptions at a Chinese pharmacy and tried to identify these herbs (10 to 14 items in each prescription) the next day. For the believers, they might make the potions and drink it when they returned home. The course was well designed and constructed. The instructors Bridie Andrews, TJ Heinrichs and Linda Barnes are first-rate scholars in their fields. They are very knowledgeable and they complemented each other very well. They made the course fun, relaxed and enjoyable. The material was very informative, interesting and very well presented. The hands-on experience and field trip to Chinatown were definitely highlights of the trip. I highly recommend this course to anyone who has interest in TCM whether or not they plan to teach such a course in the future.

My only complaint is that getting information from the “HAR” center was quite difficult. The contact information on the Chautauqua web site was incorrect, so inquiries went unanswered. When the new “HAR” center director was located and contacted, there was still no reply to inquiries until application was filled out and check received. A lot of planning including cost, lodging, travel needs to be done before course registration.

Some selected resources from the course:

Books

Ted J. Kaptchuk. The Web that has no Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. Revised edition. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2000.

Shigehisa Kuriyama. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York: Zone Books, 1999.

Nancy N. Chen. Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Volker Sheid. Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002.

Nathan Sivin and G.E.R. Lloyd. The Way and the Word. Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Michael Strickmann. Chinese Magical Medicine. Ed. Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Internet resources:

Chinese Medicine Web Page, http://www.albion.edu/history/chimed/diss.html

Chinese Science and Medicine, Nathan Sivin, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/

The Golden Elixir: A website on Chinese Alchemy, http://venus.unive.it/dsao//pregadio/index.html

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, http://nccam.nih.gov/health/

National Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Alliance, http://www.AOMAlliance.org

Acupuncture.com, http://www.acupuncture.com

The China Experience, http://www.chinavista.com/experience/index.html

Chinese Myths and Fantasies, http://www.chinavista.com/experience/myth/myth.html

A Visual Sourcebook for Chinese Civilization, http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/contents.htm

Listen to pronunciation of characters, http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/topics/topics.html

Group picture at Harvard Science Center.

Instructors: Dr. Bridie Andrews (front center), Dr. Linda Barnes (front right), Dr. TJ Heinrichs (not pictured)

Dining Hall at Harvard where Harry Potter movie dining room scenes were filmed.