ABSTRACT
One of the fairest, most balanced discussions of the attempt to philosophically integrate Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine is a fifty-year-old book by a Korean doctor, Hun Young Cho, titled Oriental Medicine: A Modern Interpretation, translated into English by Kihyon Kim. The author intended the book primarily for a Western audience and, by writing it, hoped to cast light on the real differences, and relative strengths and weaknesses of both systems as he came to see them after years of study in both traditions. Throughout the book, Cho contrasts the two medical systems (Oriental and Western Medicine) by means of what he calls "critical comparisons". The issue of placebo effect was crucial to the results in a JAMA-reported study of acupuncture treatments for HIV-related peripheral neuropathic pain, which concluded that acupuncture was not "more effective than placebo in relieving pain caused by HIV-related peripheral neuropathy".
