Traditional Chinese Medicine (中医 Zhongyi )

A medical science for the treatment and prevention of diseases by applying unique Chinese medical theories and prescription drugs that had been formulated as early as the Spring and Autumn and WarringStates periods (770-221 B.C.). The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic, the earliest Chinese medical book, was compiled during this period, which laid down the theoretical basis for traditional Chinese medicine.

The Chinese medical science regards the human body as an organism with main and collateral channels at the core. It also regards the human being and other things in nature as combinations of the two opposites, yin and yang. The loss of balance between yin and yang gives rise to diseases, and to treat a disease is to readjust yin and yang and enhance resistance to it by dispelling the pathogenic influences.

Diagnosis is done by observation, auscultation and smelling, questioning, and pulse feeling and palpation. Symptoms which tell whether an internal organ is affected by exogenous harmful factors and whether a disease is caused by cold or febrile factors or by the deficiency of vital energy to ward off diseases, as well as the dialectical relationship between yin and yang and the dialectics of the viscera, are used as the theoretical basis for clinical diagnosis.

Traditional Chinese painting, Peking Opera, and traditional Chinese medicine are known throughout the world as the three national treasures of China.