On Seasonal Influences in North America vs. China

Here's a quick post about attempting to treat with the seasons that way classical Chinese physicians believed we must.

As you may know, in addition to helping build Meridian Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine, I am also working towards my Doctorate of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, CA. In a course on the foundational Chinese medical text Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen (Yellow Emperor's Inner Cannon: Basic Questions), we were asked to formulate questions for the most well-known and respected western translator of classical Chinese medical texts. Dr. Paul Unschuld is a Sinologist and medical historian who has spent his career analyzing and contextualizing the written sources of Chinese medicine. My question for him and his response follow:

Colby: With the emphasis on seasonal influences in Chinese medicine, how does a practitioner adjust to the differing manifestations of seasonal change in different parts of the country? As a practitioner trained in San Diego and practicing in Kentucky, my experience of the seasons and their influence of patients' Qi is very different. China, as much as the US, has diverse climates spread over a large territory, so this is not a problem unique to North American practitioners.

Dr. Unschuld: A question very difficult to respond to as it touches on one of the most essential problems associated with a transfer of Chinese medical concepts not only from one culture sphere to another, but also from geographic and natural environment to another. China itself is almost exactly as large as the USA. However, to its West, where the winds and the weather come from, China has the huge landmass of the Eurasian continent. This is different from the US, and also from Western Europe. With the Eurasian landmass to its West, the climate in the region where Chinese medicine was conceptualized was much more predictable than in Western Europe or North America. The fact is, the begin of a new season is much more “on time” in China than at the Western End of Eurasia. Hence Chinese naturalists two millennia ago may have been convinced to see a regularity which they felt could be expressed in terms of Yin-Yang and Five-Phases, and also in the doctrine of the Five-Periods and Six-Qi. To think this over and to argue in favor of or against a meaningful transfer of these ideas to North America – that is a homework yet to be done. Chinese medicine may be researched on the basis of modern biomedical parameters. It may also be researched in its own terms: Take the data offered in the Suwen, and see how they apply to human existence in North America. Very little has been done in this respect so far. Maybe the insights documented in the Suwen should just be seen as alerting today’s readers to the fact that climate-qi has a bearing on our health, and to acknowledge, as does the Suwen, that people living in the North, South, West, East or Middle live in different natural environments with numerous consequences. All this needs to be discussed. The Suwen is simply a stimulus from antiquity that is thought provoking even today. Subsequent generations in China have more or less faithfully further developed the ideas expressed in the Suwen. To believe that one could draw on these thoughts and stimuli without adapting them to the time and environment we live in may be insufficient.

Just like western medicine, it's an ever-changing science, despite its roots in antiquity. Enjoy your Thanksgiving!