Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Mook (5): Principles of Evaluation of Disease Symptoms

Let us talk about principles of evaluation of disease symptoms.

  • Any kind of disease symptoms stems from the deficiency of Jing qi.
  • The degree of deficiency of Jing qi is evaluated according to how much changes can be seen in reference points.
Everybody has Jing qi, and whether Jing qi is deficient or not is evaluated from the disease symptoms. If there is any symptoms or diseases, there should be the deficiency of Jing qi underneath.

How severe or degree of the deficiency of Jing qi can be evaluated from the condition of reference points, but how changable the reference points are after treatment is also the big point. You can reckon that as more unchangeable reference points are more severe the deficiency of Jing qi is. So, you can judge the condition of a patient from this.   

However, this is a kind of delicate thing, because changes of reference points are depending on the ability of the practitioner, aren't they? Sometimes, whoever performs the treatment, they do not work, but in other cases, while one practitioner performs a treatment, it works well, but the other person does same, but it doesn't work out, these things could happen. There are various stages. The degree of deficiency of Jing qi is in the relative relationship with a practitioner. So, when a patient who comes to you does not make an improvement, you might judge that his/her deficiency of Jing qi is severe, but when you introduce him/her to some other practitioner, for the introduced practitioner, the same patient could be easier to make a change. In this case, for the introduced practitioner, the deficiency of Jing qi of the patient is not so severe.

Treatment is based on only the relationship between a patient and a therapist, so the treatment is depending on the therapist's evaluation ability and skill. This is not the sphere that so called objectivity is coming in. This is the characteristic (of acupuncture), but some people say this would be in trouble, so they talk about EBM, the concepts of the modern medicine, Western medicine are related with this. Some people in the Oriental medicine might compromise in the superficial sense. This is very difficult issue.


*This is translated from "Mook Shakuju Therapy" vol.1 (2013). This is the summary of Kobayashi sensei's lecture held in Chiba on February, 2012.