Many in the west are familiar with the popular image of acupuncture--the seemingly random placement of needles into patients that is supposed to somehow cure illness. While superficially this may be true, acupuncture is actually a very highly refined form of traditional Chinese medicine that has been practiced and improved for thousands of years and is based on a logically self consistent belief system. The western medical community is indecisive about acupuncture--some studies have indicated some effectiveness while others have been inconclusive.
In western medicine, the body is looked at as essentially an unimaginably complicated machine. Cells form tissues which form organs which form systems, and so on, and every condition can, theoretically, be isolated to its root causes and treated. In this way of thinking, the body is a sum of its parts. If all of the parts work correctly, the body will work correctly. Hence, modern western medicine treats individual systems, organs, and tissues.
Traditional Chinese medicine takes a rather different approach to biology. In traditional Chinese medicine, the body is an organic, fluid whole that is something greater than the sum of its parts. Traditional Chinese medicine does not ignore organs and systems, but it does not view the body as reducible to component parts. In the Chinese view, illness is caused by imbalances of certain vital forces and pathways in the body. By stimulating these pathways with acupuncture, it is possible to correct the imbalances and cure the illness.
