TCM Analysis and Treatment of Early Symptoms of COVID-19 Liuzhong Ye, Peilin Sun and Tianjun Wang
The novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease first broke out and was identified in Wuhan, China in late 2019. On 11 March 2020, based upon the fact that in a period of merely two weeks, the number of cases of Covid-19 outside China had increased 13-fold and the number of affected countries had tripled, WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic.1 However, sadly, no specific drugs are available to treat and prevent Covid-19 at this moment. There are some typical early symptoms, along with other less identifiable manifestations, red-flagging the presence of the illness. Early identification and management of these seemingly scattered early symptoms are extremely important in terms of controlling the spread and preventing further deterioration of Covid-19. Authors in this article attempt to explore the pathogenesis and mechanisms of these early symptoms and provide advice on relevant treatments from the viewpoint of TCM, illustrating that precise reading of all these early symptoms has significant importance in order to achieve successful TCM management in time.
Personal Reflections on the Jade Screen Project Andrew Flower
The earliest record of the Jade Windscreen Powder (Yu Ping Feng San) was in the 13th-century text Researching Original Formulas (Jiu Yuan Fang). The formula comprises three herbs which aim to strengthen the qi and stabilise the exterior, and thereby help prevent invasion of exterior pathogenic factors such as Wind and Cold. It is a simple but elegant formula that is used for allergic rhinitis, asthma, to enhance a compromised immune system, and now in the treatment of Covid-19.
The Jade Screen Project (JSP) was conceived 800 years later, in March 2020 while watching the 10 o’clock news, in frustration at the wasteful marginalisation of TCM practitioners in this country when TCM herbal methods had already been proven of value in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic in China. The author outlines the uphill task of gaining acceptance for the JSP, which offers free herbal treatment to NHS and other front-line workers, and hopes later to evaluate data acquired from this exciting project.
Four Needles, Five Elements and Six Qi: Treatment using Korean SaAm Acupuncture Andreas Brüch
SaAm acupuncture is one of the main acupuncture styles of Korean medicine. It encompasses all basic theories of ‘standard’ Chinese medicine. Additionally, it relies heavily on the theory of the Six Qi (liu qi) or Six Climatic Energies. The Six Qi provide a model of balancing climatic meridian energies that can be used either for directly treating disease syndromes or as a framework for treatment of general constitutional and emotional factors of disease. The purpose of this article is to introduce basic SaAm acupuncture theory, and to highlight its specific features and practical approach by discussing some case examples of the author.
The Use of Du 16 feng fu in the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety: Significant, Immediate Improvements in Two Severe Cases Nicholas Lowe and Tianjun Wang
Two cases are reported where the specific needling of the acupuncture point Du 16 feng fu appeared to provide immediate and lasting clinical improvements for two patients suffering from severe depression and anxiety where a range of other treatments, acupuncture and conventional, had failed. Conventionally, acupuncture treatment of psychological disorders has focussed predominantly on the peripheral channels and organ pattern syndrome differentiation. Our results indicate that treatment strategies which more directly target the du mai, brain and autonomic nervous system may be clinically more effective than conventional body acupuncture alone for the treatment of psychological disorders; and that Du 16 feng fu may be uniquely effective. This approach is supported by classical TCM theory, the neurocentric understanding of psychological disorders in modern medicine, as well as the increasing evidence for the central role that various neurological mechanisms play in acupuncture’s therapeutic effects.
Liver qi stagnation: East and West Kim Wells
This article is a critical examination of current understandings and applications of the concept of Liver qi stagnation or constraint, largely from a cross-cultural perspective. In particular, it looks at the way its meaning has been changed in the course of its transposition to the West. It claims Western practitioners of Chinese medicine have tended to more closely identify this concept with emotional suppression than clinicians in China, who have traditionally been more inclined to focus on the somatic manifestations of stagnation (often sidestepping the emotional realm and even colluding with patients to gloss over signs of socially unacceptable psychological disorders). It relates this to radical differences in the ways Westerners and Chinese view the emotions and the self, with the former influenced by Freudian-derived notions such as repression and stressing the therapeutic benefits of expressing and exploring feelings; and the latter much more inclined to see emotions as potential pathogenic factors, which need to be contained and ‘rectified’. It also claims that the concept of Liver qi stagnation has been Westernised in another sense, by being over-simplistically and too readily equated with Western-defined biomedical categories such as depression and anxiety as well as popular conceptions like stress, and that this tendency has been encouraged in China as well as the West by the TCM orthodoxy that has promoted it as the favoured diagnostic option for emotion-related disorders.
The Innovation of Acupuncture in the West Kai Wu and Ruilin Zeng
Just as Chinese culture in the East has been very diverse and absorbed and acculturated in multidimensional ways, acupuncture in the West has also developed in its own diverse ways, sometimes emphasising traits that are more spiritual or scientific, or even incorporating ideas from other cultures. Many famous practitioners have created new aspects through their wisdom and inspiration, through adapting local environments and integrating different fields. Material evidence of this can be found in medical implements, knowledge, social organisations and even in art. Therefore, to judge the value of Chinese medicine in the West should not only be from its direct clinical use but from its profound adaption and innovation in other ways, i.e. the ‘Western innovation of acupuncture’ can be viewed as a successful example of the transmission of Chinese medicine in the West.
The Akabane Test - A Safe and Effective Treatment Which Can Help Prevent Disease Stuart Lightbody
First described by Akabane Kobe, a Japanese practitioner from the mid decades of the last century, this test highlights any potential imbalance or asymmetry existing between the left and right hand sides within the 12 bilateral meridians. A test which leads directly to a rapidly balancing treatment, it forms a highly effective and safe addition to any practice in a manner that both makes sense to the majority of patients, and which can, with proper focus, practice and application, be learnt in a short period of time. With illustrative case histories.
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