What is "Korean Medicine"?
The Korean Medicine is Korea's traditional medicine that is originated from Korea and developed through continuous exchange.
A combination of traditional Korean and
East Asian medicine from the Korean Peninsula.
The world is facing an increase in chronic
diseases due to an aging population. As a result, the medical community is
shifting from treatment to prevention, and the demand for preventative
traditional medicine is also on the rise.
Korean Medicine boasts centuries of history
as a remedy for diseases and holistic care. However, there are not many
specialists of traditional medicine overseas that are aware of Korean Medicine.
For such reason, this newsletter will introduce the past, present, and future
of Korean Medicine.
Korean Medicine, a branch of East Asian
medicine, originates from the Korean Peninsula and Liadong China, suggesting
that it has been passed down and developed in the two areas that were
previously inhabited by the Korean people of today.
The contents and medicinal properties have
been steadily developed through exchanges with countries of Chinese origin—the
father of East Asian medicine—and further east, contributing to medical
development in Japan.
Korean Medicine is mainly composed of
pharmaceutical treatments based on the medical theory of the Three Treasures
(Jing-Qi-Shen) and acupuncture based on Meridian Theory. Practitioners have
also developed various natural treatment techniques such as meditation and
qigong, massage, and bone setting. The long development of natural treatment
techniques has also affected the food and life culture, evolving to meet both
nutritional and health needs using medicinal foods. In fact, one of the
important principles of Korean Medicine is to find a healthy lifestyle, and
this paradigm has led to a centralized culture on efficient use of life energy,
thereby contributing to the realization of the value of medicine in food, daily
activities, and culture.
DonguiBogamAnthology of Korean Medicine and World Cultural Heritage
Twelfth-century East Asia experienced an
active increase in distribution and dissemination of information owing to the
development of printing technology. Therefore, various efforts were made to
improve the level of medicine of each country by sharing information with
surrounding countries. At the time, Goryo Korea had strategically accepted the
massive Chinese medical database and focused on the development of domestic
medicine that could fully utilize the Chinese treatment techniques. By the
fourteenth century, Korea had successfully established an infrastructure that
could fully employ the medical techniques of China (which was then an advanced
country in medicine) while using domestic medicine and medical professionals
without imports.
The Joseon Dyansty was newly established on
the Korean Peninsula in 1392, and the government strategically fostered an
advanced healthcare system which became the basis for the national medicine of
the new dynasty. In 1477, it published the Classified Collection of Medical
Formulas (Euibang Yoochui), the greatest surviving database of East Asian
medical information, and published the Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine
(Dongui Bogam) in 1613, contributing to the medical development of surrounding
countries including China and Japan.
As a result of such contribution, Dongui
Bogam was listed as a UNESCO Memory of the World in 2009.
Korean MedicineFocusing on the basic nature of the human body that causes diseases
The most significant characteristic of
Korean Medicine is that it focuses more on the basic nature of the human body
that causes diseases rather than the disease itself. It particularly focuses on
the specific pathophysiology of each individual, which also became the
background of Lee Je-Ma creating the Sasang Constitutional Medicine at the end
of eighteenth century. Sasang Constitutional Medicine classifies humans into
four categories and deals with the corresponding pathophysiology of disease as
well as its treatment. It is still one of the major pillars of Korean Medicine
today.
What is the difference between Korean
Medicine and East Asian medicine?
Korean Medicine, traditional Chinese
medicine, Japanese Kampo medicine, and traditional Vietnamese medicine are all
names of East Asian medicine traditions. Development of printing technology in
the tenth century as well as the diversification of international relations led
to countries surrounding China—such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam—to accept the
advanced medicine of China at the time. However, by the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, each country was able to establish its own medicine
rivaling China with domestic infrastructure and no imported medicines or
medical scholars from China. From then, Korea began to influence Japan and
China, and Japan also influenced Korea and China, leading to partial
distinction of contents and form of medicine in reflection of the distinct
characteristics of each country.
Korea was engaged in the specialization of
Constitutional Medicine, and Japan was engaged in research for the Treatise on
Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, developing a new prescription technique
based on abdominal diagnosis. Such traditional medicine of each country gradually
faded as conventional medicine when Western medicine was introduced at the end
of nineteenth century. Following twentieth-century modernization, contemporary
healthcare systems were created in each country, along with the implementation
of medical licensing systems. China’s state-led healthcare system has three
types of licenses, consisting of doctor of medicine, doctor of traditional
Chinese medicine, and doctor of integrated medicine.
Korea’s healthcare market is maintained by
market competition, and it has two types of licenses, consisting of doctor of
Korean Medicine and doctor of medicine. Japan does not have a distinct system
for traditional medicine within the major system, and therefore is an
environment in which some licensed doctors are interested in the traditional
medicine as a sub-specialty. Vietnam also has some remaining heritage of East
Asian medicine, which is currently fostered by the government. However, the
level of infrastructure is extremely low in comparison with that of the other
three countries.
In summary, Korean Medicine, traditional
Chinese medicine, Japanese Kampo medicine, and traditional Vietnamese medicine
are all forms of East Asian medicine that have long been shared and developed
within the East Asian culture, and currently coexist with Western medicine in
the different healthcare systems. They can be said to be similar in that they
share the fundamental theory and treatment techniques. On the contrary, they
are different in that each reflects distinct qualities as a result of centuries
of nationalization. Moreover, they have settled regionally with the system and
culture of each country following the establishment of the modern nation state
that heralded Western medicine as the new conventional medicine.
The above article is an excerpt from Korean
Medicine: Current Status and Future Prospects, written and published by
scholars at the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Pusan National University
School of Korean Medicine. We hope that more medical scholars will be able to
understand and utilize Korean Medicine after reading this article.
For more information, please refer to
Korean Medicine: Current Status and Future Prospects.
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