ABSTRACT
Contemporary biomedicine has focused its attention largely upon the material body and based its treatment methods primarily on the use of synthetically derived drugs or surgery. In both traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, diagnoses are based more on a sensitive reading of the pulse of the radial artery at a number of prescribed points, and an assessment of such features as the patient’s appearance and posture, than on blood tests or high-tech visualisations of the interior of the body. The treatment methods of traditional Chinese medicine presuppose the existence of a series of conduits or meridians through which energies circulate within the body. Scientific method has determined the game plan of what is deemed good medicine throughout most of the Western world. Holism operates at a number of levels. The individual cell is a finely balanced system in constant interaction with its surroundings.
