Shiatsudo Blog

I remember reading a bit about the history of acupuncture a little while ago. Something that caught my eye was that apparently, in the good old days in China, noblemen and women would employ an acupuncturist or physician to maintain their health. The acupuncturist would be given a stipend to ensure that their patient did not get sick. If and when the patient did fall ill, the acupuncturist would not be paid for the duration of the illness.

I don’t know if that is true or not, but just think about the implications of a health care system that would work like that. Rather than be paid to cure someone, physicians would only be paid if their patients remain in good health! That kind of incentive would radically alter the way medicine is practised.

From the physician’s point of view, it would make him very committed to their work. They would have to really get to know and work with their patients over an extended period of time. It would encourage daily check-ups, and an attitude where the physician listened to the patient and really tried to find the root cause of any problem and eliminate it. In this context, a “holistic” system of medicine is really the only one that could survive; and it kind of makes sense that Traditional Chinese Medicine is the way it is. The only way to minimise the chance of someone getting ill is to cover all the bases; take into account the individual’s constitution, their particular weaknesses and strengths, their habits and their lifestyle. Medicine would incorporate every aspect of a person’s life; diet, exercise, mental and emotional state, work life, home life and so on.

The responsibility would also pass onto the patients, since they would have to follow their physicians’ advice. If they didn’t and fell ill, their physicians could easily blame the illness on the fact that the patients had not done as advised. So the patients would become more intimately acquainted with their own health. Under the watchful eye of their physicians, patients would report daily on their diet, exercise, mental and emotional state. They would, by the very nature of taking time daily to check in with their body, become more aware of themselves, more in tune with their bodies and probably take more of an interest in staying healthy.

Often, people explore complementary therapies in an attempt to move back towards a system where healthcare is more about staying healthy day to day rather than ignoring their health for large stretches of time and then when a problem becomes chronic and impossible to ignore, running to a GP and expecting a magic pill to make it better.

Prevention is better than cure they say.

Tags:Acupuncture & TCM, healthcare, TCM