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BOOK
REVIEW:Chinese Medicine In Contemporary China:
Plurality And Synthesis
By Volker Scheid
Duke University Press; 2002
Reviewed by Bob Flaws, LAc
Volker
Scheid’s new book, Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality
and Synthesis, is a significant read for anyone interested in the practice
and development of Chinese medicine during the last hundred years. Volker
is a German-born practitioner of Chinese medicine as well as a medical
anthropologist at the University of London. While many acupuncturists
might find this book somewhat difficult to read due to its academic
jargon, I believe it is well worth the effort. This book is the clearest
and most complete explanation I have read of the various factors influencing
the development of Chinese medicine in Republican, Maoist, Dengist,
and contemporary China. Since its publication, there is no longer any
excuse for much of the mythological thinking about Chinese medicine
in the West.
Volker’s central premise is that the development of Chinese medicine
in China is and always has been a multifactorial process that cannot
be reduced to any of the simplistic assumptions commonly bandied about
by modernist anthropologists and Western practitioners of Chinese medicine.
Essentially, this is postmodernist complexity theory applied to the
ethnography of Chinese medicine (with small amounts of Yi Jing and the
Buddhist theory of codependent origination). As such, it appears to
be cutting edge social science. Volker attempts to elucidate the complex
variety of factors that affect the practice and development of Chinese
medicine through a series of “case histories.” These case
histories deal with the bi-directional relationships of Chinese medicine
and its practitioners with the Chinese government, patients, Western
medicine, educational institutions, the Chinese medical literature,
social networks, technology, and the marketplace. While these case histories
support Volker’s postmodernist thesis, they are also enlightening
descriptions of the state of Chinese medicine in the People’s Republic
of China, and what life is like for a contemporary Chinese doctor. Even
though I have lived and studied in China, I had no knowledge of some
of the behind-the-scenes factors influencing Chinese doctors’ words
and actions. Likewise, even though I read Chinese, Volker’s erudition
in the Chinese medical literature is extraordinary.
As Volker himself counsels, non-anthropological readers may want to
skip part 1 which presents Volker’s theory of codependent origination.
However, part 2 on the state of contemporary Chinese medicine and part
3 on the future of Chinese medicine are more than worth the price of
this book. Anyone attached to his or her current assumptions about contemporary
Chinese medicine should probably not read this book, but for anyone
interested in a mature, complex, but thoroughly human and humane discussion,
this book is an eye-opener.
REVIEWER
INFORMATION
Bob Flaws, LAc, is a Fellow and past Governor of the National Academy
of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, a Fellow of the Register of Chinese
Herbology (UK), a lifetime Fellow, founding member, and past President
of the Acupuncture Association of Colorado, and has authored numerous
books and articles.
Bob Flaws, Dipl Ac and CH, LAc, FNAAOM, FRCHM
Blue Poppy Enterprises, Inc
5441 Western Ave #2
Boulder, CO 80301
Phone: 303-447-8372 • Fax: 303-245-8362
E-mail: bob@bluepoppy.com
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