Overview
English translations of traditional Chinese medical texts rarely have conformed to the standards required of a contribution to sinology. One exception has been the first edition of Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine, a ground-breaking translation of the Zhong Yi Ji Chu Xue which demonstrated that not only was it possible to meet scholarly expectations for the translations of TCM, but that the cooperation of living Chinese speaking clinicians could reveal nuances of practice. Beyond beginner’s manuals, it gives English-speaking students of TCM a chance to appreciate the qualitative details available to their Chinese-speaking colleagues. It offers readers the rare opportunity to understand Chinese medicine, not as it is perceived by a Western writer, but as it is perceived and taught in China, because Chinese descriptions of TCM that confound Western expectations have not been expunged from the textual translation.
This revised edition incorporates experience from utilization of the work as a coursebook for teaching, not only in the West but in China. Based on the suggestion and aid of Western teachers and translators, this new, popularly priced edition features a simplified but precise English terminology, thousands of source Chinese characters, and hundreds of clinical definitions never before available in English. Contents include yin and yang and the five phases; qi, blood, essence, and fluids; the channels; the organs; diseases and their causes. Pattern identification and treatment of eight-parameter, organ, qi-blood, pathogens, and exogenous heat conditions are discussed in detail, as are the principles and methods of treatment. Illustrative acumoxa therapy has been added for Western acupuncturists.
The revised edition includes explanations of terms and an entire materia medica and formulary sufficient to practice the treatments described by the text. As such it is not only a unique, absolutely-defined and referenced text, but a self-contained and inexpensive course of study. As a basic text produced to a multi-author, multi-publisher voluntary standard, the revised Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine is a bridge between scholars and clinicians in both the East and West.
Author Information
Nigel Wiseman
Translator: Ten Lecutres on the Use of Formulas from the Personal Experience of Jiao Shu De
Author: Chinese Grammar for Life, Chinese Medical Characters Volume 1 to 5, Chinese Medicine Grammar and Vocabulary, Concise Chinese Materia Medica, Fundamentals of Chinese Acupuncture, Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine, Grasping the Wind, Introduction of English Terminology of Chinese Medicine, Jin Gui Yao Lue, A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine,.
Nigel Wiseman received his bachelors degree in simultaneous German and Spanish interpretation and translation from Harriot Watt University in 1976, and his PhD in Complementary Medicine from the University of Exeter in 2000. He resides in Taiwan where he is a faculty member at Chang Gung University. He is an editorial board member of the Journal of Chinse Medicine (ROC), The China Medical College Journal (ROC), and Clinical Acupuncture and Moxibustion Journal (UK). He serves on the terminological standards committees of the People’s Republic of China and the World Health Organization.
Andrew Ellis
Andrew Ellis first studied Chinese medicine with Dr. James Tin Yau So at the New England School of Acupuncture. He left New England in 1983 to study Chinese language in Taiwan and apprenticed with Chinese herbalist Xu Fu-Su for several years. Later he studied internal medicine and gynecology at the Xiamen Hospital of Chinese medicine. While there, he also specialized in the study of acupuncture with Dr. Shi Neng-Yun and dermatology with Dr. Zhang Guang-Cai.
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While this book is often considered complex, “Ph.D. Level,” it is in fact the only complete and unabridged translation of a Chinese medical school basic text. As such it represents a base knowledge for those who hope to practice Chinese medicine in the People’s Republic of China.