The basic concepts of Chinese Medicine

Contents Qi in Chinese Medicine Yin and Yang The Five Phases Theory Chinese Medicine's fundamental substances The body's organs according to Chinese Medicine Chinese Medical theory is rooted in ancient Chinesephilosophy, namelyConfucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.For instance Taoism believes that the nature follows certain rules (Tao,道, means "the way") and thatall phenomena, including human behavior, follow these rules. These 2'500 years old beliefs were a crucialconceptual underpinning for the emergence of Chinese Medicine whose very purpose is to discover those rules that pertain to the human body. In a way, it doesn't differ much from why modern science emerged since the Renaissance in the Western world: it emerged because Western thinkers started to understand that there were laws of nature that needed to be discovered.Another key conceptual belief behind Chinese Medicine is the concept of oppositions (Yin and Yang, which we'll see in more details later). This is the belief that som...