TCM Case Studies: External Medicine

Chinese External Medicine is the branch of TCM concerned with diagnosis and treatment of conditions that affect the body s surface, unlike TCM Internal Medicine whereby the focus is on internal organ systems. External medicine, or wai ke, refers to conditions that can be seen by the eye or palpated directly such as traumatic injuries, skin diseases, breast lumps, hemorrhoids, male genital problems and so on. Despite the common nature of many conditions covered by Chinese external medicine, until the publication of this book, little had been done to introduce these essential diagnostic and treatment methods to the West.

Eight chapters in the text are devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of sores and ulcerations, breast conditions, goiter, skin lesions, sexually transmitted diseases, anorectal conditions, male urogenital conditions, peripheral vascular diseases and other external conditions, with 92 external conditions in total. Internal therapies, medicinal formulas, external applications, and acupuncture treatments are provided along with both Chinese pinyin and characters for easy reference. Sixty representative case studies are also presented here, making this book the first comprehensive English language text on Chinese External medicine.