中医药翻译与文化的关系

The Culture and Translation of TCM

TCM is a subject to study human physiology, pathology and the diagnosis and prevention of disease. It carries the experience and theoretical knowledge from the ancient Chinese people’s fighting against the disease.

The origin of TCM theory comes from the summary of medicinal experience and the idea of yinyang and the five elements.

The Basic Theory of TCM

1.Yinyang: Yinyang theory is the ancient Chinese philosophy category. yinyang is the summary of the interrelated things and phenomena. People use the waxing and waning of yinyang to explain the movement of things. TCM holds that the world is material which is the result of the interaction of yin and yang.

2.The Five Elements: It refers to wood ,fire ,earth ,gold and water, the five kinds of substances and their movement. The five elements complies with the five zang –organs, namely: liver and wood, heart and fire, spleen and earth ,gold and lung water and kidney.

3. Qi-blood and fluid :Qi is the essential element constituting human life and maintaining the activities of human body and it has the functions of warming ,preventing and aeration气化.

Blood is the basic material to constitute human life and maintain human activities and it has a high nutrition and owns the function of moistening.

Fluid refers to the inner fluid and normal secretions of zang-organs and fu-organs.

4.zang-organs and fu-organs:It mainly studies the physiological functions and the pathological changes of five zang-organs, six fu-organs and the extraordinary fu-organs.

5.Channels and collaterals 经络:It is defined as the channel of body running qi and blood, it has the function to link up internality and externality.

6. Five movements and six climates 五运六气:It is the theory to study and explore the change of nature, astronomy, meteorology and climate which make a difference to human health.

7.The holism concept :Human body is an organic whole consisting of a number of organs and tissues with different functions .

The unity of man and nature: nature has the necessary condition for human survival.The chang of nature will affect human body both directly and indirectly.

8.Treatment based on syndrome differentiation:“bianzheng” is to make clear the reason ,property, position and the relationship between zheng and xie of the disease by analyzing and integrating the material ,symptom and data collected through the four diagnostic methods which include looking, listening, asking and feeling.

“Lunzhi” also named “shizhi”,is to make appropriate treat principles and methods according to the analyzing result fr om “bianzheng.

The difficulties in translating Chinese medicine

The ambiguity of expression:The Chinese medicine theory’s developing is