Chapter 815: Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine

Chapter 815: Chapter 815: Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine

Song Luojun slowly stood up and swept his gaze across the room. "Cancer, heart disease, coronary heart disease... Hearing these words, the first reaction that pops into your head is ’major illness.’

"Since it is a major illness, many doctors will subconsciously resort to heavy medication, large prescriptions, and massive doses. They always feel that if the dosage isn’t high enough, it won’t demonstrate their skill or suppress the disease.

"Conversely, when encountering common colds, vomiting, or loss of appetite, they often consider them minor ailments and dare not use potent medicine. They always feel the symptoms are mild and fear that heavy medication will cause incalculable harm to the patient and worsen the condition. This kind of thinking is actually being rigidly boxed in by Western medicine’s ’disease-naming theory’."

Song Luojun’s words caused Ju Jiahong’s expression to change slightly, and he subconsciously lowered his head. The flickering flames of doubt in his heart were instantly extinguished.

It wasn’t just Ju Jiahong; the vast majority of doctors present revealed expressions of shame or deep thought. Indeed, in this era of integrated Chinese and Western medicine, who could truly keep their judgment unswayed by thick stacks of test results and Western medical diagnoses?

*Rheumatic heart disease with Grade IV heart failure.* These words carried the weight of a mountain, suffocating Zhu Gaoyuan and causing Ju Jiahong to subconsciously pursue a heavy dose to nourish the yin. Yet Li Xu alone saw past the smooth, red, coating-free tongue to the spleen and stomach’s line of defense that was on the verge of total collapse.

"We’ve always said that Chinese medicine practitioners must not bring Western medical thinking into Chinese medicine. We must learn to ’keep Chinese medicine as the core while referencing Western medicine,’" Song Luojun continued earnestly. "However, many people actually lack an accurate concept of this word ’core’.

"Some feel that since they practice integrated medicine, they don’t need to care at all about the conflation of the two mindsets. Others believe that as long as they don’t use Western medical standards when prescribing medication, they are fine. Both of these ideas completely miss the mark.

"In keeping Chinese medicine as the core while referencing Western medicine, Chinese medicine is the ’core.’ It is the soul, the foundation. Western medicine’s methods and standards are merely references and benchmarks during our dialectical diagnosis. The goal is to dynamically interpret the ’syndrome,’ not to let the Western diagnosis dictate your judgment.

"If you force yourself to prescribe a ’major medication’ just because Western medicine labels it a ’major illness,’ then you have severely deviated from the essence of Chinese medicine. This is what it means to ’let the name mismatch the reality, and let the mind be swayed by external labels.’"

Sitting to the side, Li Xu nodded repeatedly as he listened. Although he had his intelligence system as a trump card, in his actual medical practice, he also highly revered this pure return to the fundamentals. For Song Luojun to maintain such clarity at his high position, he truly deserved to be a generation’s master, highly esteemed by bigshots like Wang Chuyun.

"Jiahong, do you understand?" Song Luojun suddenly turned his head, his gaze locked directly onto his grandson.

Ju Jiahong’s heart gave a violent jolt. He opened his mouth, his voice slightly dry. "Grandpa, I... I really was just fixated on the terms ’rheumatic heart disease’ and ’heart failure’ just now. I kept feeling that for such a severe illness, a small prescription would just be a drop in the bucket."

"That is your obsession." Song Luojun didn’t spare Ju Jiahong’s feelings just because he was his grandson. Instead, he grew even sterner. "It’s like a man who has been starving for days. He is already too weak to walk, on the verge of starving to death.

"In this situation, an ordinary person would subconsciously think he should be fed immediately. They would serve him hearty meats, fish, steamed buns, and rice, wishing he could eat himself into a fat man in a single meal. But if a doctor also thinks this way, then he is a murderer.

"He has been starving for so many days that his spleen and stomach qi mechanism has long since severely atrophied, becoming as fragile as paper. At this moment, his only lifeline is a bowl of light, warm, and soothing porridge to slowly nourish him and awaken his vitality bit by bit.

"If you give him rock-hard steamed buns and greasy, heavy meats right from the start, his spleen and stomach will instantly collapse, and the thin thread of life keeping him alive will immediately snap. This is the profound reasoning behind why Li Xu used a delicate and nimble minor prescription like the ’Heat-Clearing and Qi-Nourishing Soup’—because at this stage, the patient is too weak to absorb heavy nourishment. His spleen and stomach no longer possess the capacity to break down ’heavy medication.’"

Ju Jiahong felt as if a clap of thunder had exploded in his mind, leaving his eardrums buzzing. Song Luojun’s analogy was like a heavy sledgehammer, directly smashing through his self-righteous ’famous doctor shell.’ It was true. He had only thought about the severity of the illness, completely forgetting the frailty of the patient. He had only focused on ’promoting diuresis,’ forgetting to ’nourish.’ Li Xu’s ’minor prescription’ wasn’t because the illness was minor, but because of the practitioner’s compassion and rigor.

"Those of us studying Chinese medicine often hear a saying: the closely guarded secret of Chinese medicine lies in its dosages." Song Luojun looked back at the crowd, his tone profound. "The exact same herbs, in different dosages, can produce entirely different effects. Take the prescriptions in the *Treatise on Cold Pathogenic and Warm Pathogenic Diseases*, for instance. Adding or subtracting an ounce or two, or slightly altering the preparation method, will completely change the nature and trajectory of the medicine.

"Knowing exactly under what circumstances to use heavy medication and massive doses, and when to use delicate, minor prescriptions—this is what truly tests a doctor’s proficiency. Being able to save lives with heavy doses is a skill; daring to delicately fine-tune a patient’s health with a minor prescription is an even higher realm of mastery."

"You all always assume that those famous experts and Great Physicians exclusively prescribe earth-shattering, massive prescriptions the moment they take action." Song Luojun revealed a faint smile. "In reality, if you dig deeply into the medical records of those famous experts, you will find that even the ’Fire Spirit Faction,’ known for their fierce and potent prescriptions, doesn’t just casually throw around hundreds of grams of Aconite every single time. Even the ’Warm Pathogen Faction,’ which excels in nourishing yin, doesn’t exclusively rely on delicate flowers and leaves at all times.

"Those nicknames you talk about—’Zhang Plaster,’ ’Lu Astragalus Root,’ ’Zhu Fuzi’—how did they come about? It’s because their research into those specific herbs reached the absolute pinnacle. They thoroughly understood the medicinal properties, so in those desperate moments of extreme urgency when a heavy hand was required, they dared to use, and excelled at using, massive doses.

"Because these ’miracles’ were so rare and breathtaking, they were remembered by outsiders and passed down as legendary tales. But in fact, throughout their lifelong medical careers, what made up the vast majority of their practice was still those ordinary, meticulously measured minor prescriptions. It’s just that curing an illness with a minor prescription is taken for granted. No one pays attention to it, which gives you the illusion that ’famous doctors must prescribe massive prescriptions.’"

At this point, Song Luojun took a deep breath and sighed, "This is actually just human nature. When a cautious and prudent person occasionally makes a bold decision, it is spoken of with awe. When an incredibly audacious person occasionally shrinks back just once, they are criticized for the rest of their life.

"We are accustomed to measuring a person’s skill by the ’miracles’ we see, yet very few are willing to calm their minds and study the profound mastery hidden behind the ’ordinary.’

"Returning to clinical practice, whether to use a major or minor prescription should solely depend on the patient’s actual condition, not on the Western medical diagnosis that strikes fear into your heart.

"We must understand that when any medicine enters the body, the first thing it faces is the ’stomach.’ The spleen and stomach are the source of biochemical transformation and the very first hurdle for any medication. If you don’t even consider whether the patient’s spleen and stomach can withstand it when determining the dosage, then what you are prescribing isn’t medicine. It’s poison."