On standardization of Chinese medical nomenclature
First, let me start by saying that I am not wholly familiar with the nomenclature debates. I have read the most recent articles, had discussions with a few professionals and thought about it for about 6 months. This by no means qualifies me as an expert on the subject! I wanted to report about my AAAOM conference experience, and Wiseman’s talk on Chinese medical translation was the first, and most interesting, talk I attended. I did not attend the debates on the prior day because I had midterms. I hope to further familiarize myself with the full breadth of the debate and as I learn more I will write more about it. I do most earnestly request that if you have an opinion or further information on this topic that you reply in the comments so we can have an open discussion. It’s too important an issue to ignore.
My first impression: Wiseman is composed, entirely rational and of impeccable intellectual achievement, also clearly passionate. The talk itself was frankly a bit of a marathon - four hours with no breaks. For an NCNM student used to my breaks every hour on the hour, it was a challenge. :D Kidding - but not really. I came to the talk with my mind completely open and ready to learn.
The bulk of the talk:
Wiseman started out by discussing the general way that transmission of knowledge and artifacts from one culture to another happens. It was an interesting preamble and the general point seemed to be that transmission happens most easily from a culture with high influence to cultures with less influence. He moved on to discuss the way that Western medicine was transmitted to China as a comparative model to analyze how Chinese medicine has been transmitted to the West. In general, I took a few things from this portion of the lecture. First, Western medicine was easily transmitted to China because the West had/has great cultural influence thus Chinese people tended to know Western languages and were generally open to Western ideas. Second, Chinese medicine transmission has suffered in the West because of the absence of these things. Third, and less overt in Wiseman’s actual words, Chinese medicine transmission to the Western world has been negatively impacted by the extremely high influence of Western concepts in the realm of medicine. In other words, when the medicine is transmitted, there is a greater tendency to put everything in explicitly Western CONCEPTS, not just Western LANGUAGE. Does that make sense?
He then moved on to the center of the lecture. In short, Wiseman believes that Chinese medical terminology should be standardized and that the standard terminology should be as literal as possible, with few exceptions. He seemed to be arguing largely against people who use biomedical translations for Chinese terms - for instance using “conjunctivitis” when translating the characters for “wind-fire-eye.” 风火目 (pardon if I don’t have those characters correct, I don’t have a text with that in it right in front of me). I am entirely behind the thrust of Wiseman’s argument on this point. Not only is it simply annoying when book authors do this, as opposed to providing a list of POSSIBLE correspondences, it’s also flatly irresponsible. Most of the biomedical approximations are just that, approximations, and often do not include important information that the Chinese term possesses.
In general, the lack of term standardization can be extremely confusing for people, particularly when Chinese characters are not available for a given concept. Wiseman pointed out several situations in which certain translations were not only merely confusing but actually misleading. I have to say that I am frankly confused by people’s resistance to standardization, particularly when that standardization is literal. If the standardization were clearly ideological (such as using all biomedical concepts) I could understand the resistance. Some have expressed concern that the standardization would prevent them from being able to express their unique understanding of a particular concept or text. However, the standardization would not mean that you couldn’t continue to explain to students or colleagues your understanding of a term, even when it differs from the standard. In fact, it would provide a convenient place to start that conversation.
My thoughts: I think the ideal situation is that everyone learns Chinese well, including Classical grammatical structures, before starting study or at least while they are learning the medicine. With this standard in place, the Chinese can be used and we avoid the problem of terminology at least for the educational environment. Whether we would still want to translate for the benefit of the general public and whether it would still be best to standardize in that situation is up for debate and largely unimportant.
But people aren’t going to learn Chinese, so this is simply impractical. Would it be fair to have this as a requirement for Chinese medical education in English speaking countries? I don’t know. I haven’t learned Chinese in the way I should have - but I’m working on it and I hope to have basic mastery within the next few years. Travel to China will certainly help me in this quest. I think regardless of its fairness or unfairness, it’s just not going to happen. Short of having people learn Chinese as a mandatory step in the Chinese medical educational process, a standard nomenclature seems best. It will help people communicate with one other and streamline the learning process for students. I’m looking forward to hearing your comments.
Eric
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Tags: Character, chinese-language, chinese-medicine, nigel-wiseman, nomenclature-debates, translation, translation-problemsRelated posts
What symptoms can emotions cause in the view of ancient Chinese medicine?
In my previous article, How the Emotions impact the body’s basic energy, Huang Di has some insightful information to share even as he has some questions about his understanding of the emotions and the basic health of the body. QiBo, however, shows his prowess as the Master by revealing some fascinating details about the full impact of emotions on the body - even discussing particular symptoms. I’ll list the text first in Chinese and then in translation to English, using Maoshing Ni’s translation as a guide. I’ll follow that with discussion about what QiBo has to say.
Tags: Character, Classical Texts (general), emotions, neijing, textual-analysis, Theory, translation-problems, translations岐 伯 曰 ：
怒 則 氣 逆/ 甚 則 嘔 血/ 及 飧 泄/ 故 氣 上 矣。
喜 則 氣 和 志 達/ 營 衛 通 利/ 故 氣 緩 矣 。
悲 則 心 系 急/ 肺 布 葉 舉 而 上 焦 不 通/ 營 衛 不 散/ 熱 氣 在 中/ 故 氣 消 矣 。
恐 則 精 卻/ 卻 則 上 焦 閉 /閉 則 氣 還/ 還 則 下 焦 脹 /故 氣 不 行 矣 。
思 則 心 有 所 存/ 神 有 所 歸/ 正 氣 留 而 不 行/ 故 氣結 矣 。
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Chinese medicine and the emotions: what does the Neijing say?
One of my professors, whom I admire very much, has a bit of a reputation at school for denigrating the focus of many Chinese medicine students and practitioners on emotional causes of disease. What I think I understand him to mean is that the involvement of emotions in the average patient is overemphasized in some circles. I have an abiding interest in the emotional life and its role in health and disease. Thus, it is important to me to come to an understanding of how I might treat people who are suffering from problems of an emotional nature as well as comprehending how emotions play a role in the development of seemingly unrelated problems. As a Classical Chinese medicine student, it makes sense for me to turn to the classics for this information. What follows is the beginning of an attempt to sketch what it is that the Chinese medical classics say, and do not say, about emotions and human health.
Round 1 : The Neijing and basics of the emotion - body connection : As the foundational text of Chinese medicine, the Neijing is a logical place to start this exploration. I will only note the most extensive and, by my judgment, interesting passages. I will use Maoshing Ni’s translation of the Neijing
- Chapter 5: “Overindulgence in the five emotions - happiness, anger, sadness, worry or fear and fright - can create imbalances. Emotions can injure the Qi while seasonal elements can attack the body. Sudden anger damages the Yin Qi; becoming easily excited or overjoyed will damage the Yang Qi. This causes the Qi to rebel and rise up to the head, squeezing the Shen out of the heart and allowing it to float away. Failing to regulate one’s emotions can be likened to summer and winter failing to regulate each other, threatening life itself.”
- An important note is that it is over-indulgence that causes problems. This sentiment is echoed in chapter 39, which indicates that only severe manifestations of negative emotion create problems. I think this is an important point. While I am sure that even mild experiences of the emotions cause some problems, the body is likely able to readily bring the body back into balance. This would not be the case if the person was already wildly out of balance - in which case even a mild emotional experience might rapidly become a serious difficulty.
Tags: Character, Classical Texts (general), emotions, five phases, textual-analysis, Theory, translation-problems
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