Disease Differentiation and Syndrome Differentiation in TCM
中医的辨病与辨证

摘要

我们通常说治疗或治愈“病证”，但在中医里，“病”与“证”是不同的。与西医不同，中医认为，有“病”指各种生命运动方式的失和状态，可引起形、气、神等方面的异常变化；“证”是指患病后出现的背离正常生理范围的系列异常现象，如发热、恶寒等。常见症状，如出汗、呕吐、下利等，在西医被视为可忽略的细节，但在中医则提供了诊断、治疗疾病的重要途径，因为每个证都是很重要的，都有可能成为治疗疾病的突破口。当然，中医并不拒绝运用各种先进诊察手段获得对于“病”的认识。例如，西医的冠心病心绞痛发作期，中医可辨证为心脉闭阻、气滞血瘀的疼痛发作期，从而以芳香温通、活血通脉为主，使气行脉畅，化解疼痛。可见，中医的病证理论独具特色，其辨证辨病论治方法，形成了中医千百年来最基本而有效的诊疗模式。

Abstract

In common sense, disease and syndrome are regarded as "one medical condition" which can be treated or cured, however, in TCM, they are different. Different from Western Medicine(WM), in TCM, disease is defined as disorders of various life activities, which may cause the abnormal changes of body, qi, spirit and other aspects; while syndrome is defined as the patient's a series of abnormality, which doesn't conform to normal physiological generalization, such as fever, aversion to cold and so on. Some common symptoms, such as sweating, vomiting and diarrhea, are regarded as the indifferent details in WM. In TCM, however, each symptom may be "the major symptom", which could be the breakthrough to diagnose and treat miscellaneous diseases.Obviously, TCM doesn't reject to obtain an overall understanding of the patient's conditions by all kinds of advanced diagnostic methods. For example, a cardiac disease, with the help of modern medical technologies, can be diagnosed as the coronary angina. While, in TCM, on the basis of syndrome differentiation, pathogenesis of the same disease can also be identified as qi stagnation with blood stasis and heart vessels obstruction. So the medicinal herbs of opening the orifices with aroma and activating blood are mainly used to regulate qi, unlock meridian and alleviate pain. So it is true that the disease-syndrome theory is a unique feature in TCM. The method of both diagnosis and treatment based on syndrome differentiation has been the most fundamental and effective in TCM for thousands of years.