Traditional medicine

VIET NAM DISCOVERY-Vietnamese Traditional Medicine -Trải nghiệm y học cổ truyền

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• published: 20 Apr 2014
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Although the government in Vietnam intends to develop an identifiable Vietnamese Medical Science, traditional medicine has existed for generations. There are three medical traditions which have coexisted in Vietnam prior to the impact of Western Medicine: these are Thuoc Bac (Northern Medicine), Thuoc Nam (Southern Medicine), and Thuoc Tay (Western Medicine). With Thuoc Bac or Northern Medicine only those Vietnamese capable of reading Chinese characters could diagnose and prescribe remedies. Northern medicine began with the belief that out of Yin-Yang force interactions and the eight trigrams, one could construct a model of the entire universe, valid on both material and moral planes. The human body was thus a microcosmic reproduction of the vast dynamic natural forces at work in the universe. The body was intimately and constantly linked to those external forces, so that good health depended in large part on tuning internal functions to the environment, as well as building defenses against disruptive changes. Disease was defined as impairment of the overall balance between external and internal, physical and moral forces. Many drugs and methods of treatment clearly emerged by trial and error, only later being incorporated by Chinese metaphysicians into medical ideology. Vietnamese practitioners of Northern Medicine relied on the four-part clinical examinations: visual inspection, auditory perception, questioning the patient, and taking his pulses. Other techniques of examination would be listening to the patient cough to even tasting his urine. Significantly, asking a patient for his past medical history or questioning him in detail about symptoms often caused suspicion. Expectations were placed on a good physician to know what was wrong from outward signs, and not have to rely on the perceptions of a untutored patient. A physician first decided whether the illness was ni thÜÖng that is to say, emanating mainly from within the body due to poor physical maintenance or emotional strain, or ngoåi cäm, the result of external forces (time of year, weather, humorous food, drink) disrupting the body's systemic harmony. After that he needed to determine whether the disease was still superficial in character (bieu), or already lodged deep in the major organs of the body (ly). The 'hot' and 'cold' components had to be delineated. Finally he reviewed all symptoms to judge whether some actually disguised the ultimate source of illness, rather than revealing them. Particular drugs could be administered to produce sweating, expectoration, defecation, urination, vomiting, heat reduction or heat increase. Other ingredients who designed to excite or soothe particular organs. Still others might be added to offset harmful side-effects. If a first choice of prescription did not appear to work, three of four other prescriptions existed for the same complaint. Some Northern medicine ingredients were extremely rare and treatment could become very expensive for the patient, capable of ruining an entire family financially if the disease persisted for very long. The second tradition available to Vietnamese was Thuoc Nam, or 'Southern Medicine'. It relies almost exclusively on tropical plants and animals native to Vietnam. It was a poor man's medicine, generally using ingredients readily available nearby and involving a minimum of processing. Most knowledge was passed unselfconsciously from one generation to the next. Thus every one understood that for a common cold one could eat rice gruel laced with onion, place one's head under a blanket for a herbal steam bath (xông), or to rub a coin hard across certain parts of the body (cåo gio). Headaches could be treated by pinching or pricking the forehead. Preheated bamboo tubes or small glass cups were applied to the skin to suck out perverse humors. Garlic or soapherry helped some in danger of fainting, ginger relieved stomach aches and a broth made from tangerine rind lessened nausea. Chewing fresh tea leaves or guava buds might halt diarrhea, apricot leaves might relieve dysentery. The third Vietnamese medical tradition Thuoc Tay involved dealing with harmful spirits, preferably by preventing them from entering the body at all. Or failing that, by finding a way to exorcise them and hence regain physical and mental equilibrium. The spirits went by many names and techniques for dealing with them were innumerable. http://www.vietspring.org/custom/trad-medicine.html