Ancient Eastern Medicine in Modern Western Times

Over many centuries, the East and the West have adapted their own form of medicine using only their histories as the time-telling tests. Chronic pain and disease have plagued both hemispheres since the beginning of time, and will forevermore, until the human race becomes at one with nature. Whether it is Western, Eastern, or even both medicines that cure the ailments of the world, both will achieve the same goal, but will follow totally different paths.

Western medicine has never taken the initiative to ask, "where the force that drives the biological [living] process comes from" to even begin and sustain life (Oreilly 2). This being so, Western medicine has comes to think that the body is nothing more than a chemical process that makes and uses its own energy (Oreilly 1). Not only does it think of humans as a form of chemical factory, but also thinks that all life sustaining energy begins and ends inside the body. As stated by Pat Oreilly, "Western medicine regards the body as a chemical process that makes the body utilize energy, produce metabolism, and perform reproduction. It is a biological process only; it begins and ends in the body. Western medicine calls itself scientific. If a theory can't be proved, tested, and reviewed by the medical community, it doesn't exist."

Western medicine tends to diagnose and treat the disease and not look at the whole picture, which in this case is the human body (West & East). Western medicine, as viewed by Eastern medicine, is based on the Yin and the Yang (West & East). The Yin would be compared to anatomy, and the Yang would be compared to Physiology. This clearly shows how the West views its medicine. Contrary to Western medicine, which breaks the body down into units, Eastern philosophies view everything as interconnected wholes (Eastern Med.) Seeing the body as such, allows for the thought that the life sustaining energy that flows, does so through interconnected paths.