Encounters with Qi: Exploring Chinese Medicine (review)

172 BOOK REVIEWS references to Carlos Castañeda as a shamanic theologian (pp. 9, 59-60) are definitely accommodations, not to undergraduate students and other responsible nonspecialists, but to "New Age" romanticism. —Daniel Merkur Syracuse University David Eisenberg, with Thomas Lee Wright, Encounters with Qi: Exploring Chinese Medicine. New York: Norton, 1985. 254 pp. $16.95. In Encounters with Qi David Eisenberg, fluent in Mandarin and a member of the Division of Behavioral Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, tells the story of his recent 1977-85 journeys to The Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in quest of "what China might teach the West" about health, disease, and medicine. He tells his story with a steady purpose and without excessive narcissism, ideology, or pandering to officials. Eisenberg's first major encounter is with Dr. Fang, his tutor in theory at the Beijing Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Readers trained in the culture of cosmopolitan ("Western") medicine will appreciate Eisenberg's struggle to master an exotic system of anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnosis, and therapeutics based on the vicissitudes of yin and yang, the Five Elements, and the meanderings of the elusive Qi (vital energy), which gives one life and "makes you who you are." The author also reports his observations and work in clinics where acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, and "herbal medicines" are used as remedies for disorders ranging from hysteria and the relief of pain to cancer. In these chapters the reader can begin to learn about the history of healing in China, the conflicts within the PRC between traditional and cosmopolitan physicians, the education, status, and role of physicians in the PRC, and the sufferings occasioned by the cultural revolution (1966-76). There is even a chapter on mental illness and psychiatry, aptly subtitled "Freud's Not Here." His second encounter forces the author to confront the possibility that the Wang sisters of Beijing possess powers of clairvoyance and telepathy . This experience prepares him for his next encounter with the Qi Gong masters—adepts at the manipulation of Qi. These men are able to split blocks of marble with their foreheads, bear great weights, and bend Book Reviews 173 iron bars, purportedly because they have learned how to "focus" their vital energy. Qi Gong exercises, relaxation and meditative techniques, and attention to abdominal breathing are said by Chinese authorities to lower blood pressure, pulse, metabolic rate, oxygen demand, and levels of dopamine beta-hydroxylase (p. 200). But the claim that these masters can "emit" or transfer some of their Qi to other objects or persons is even more arresting. Eisenberg describes the operation of the Qi Gong masters' powers of moving objects at a distance (psychokinesis) and provides a portrait of his own experiences when he submitted to the powers of these "physically superior," "confident," and "calmly defiant" men. The theories and practices of these adepts are important elements of Chinese traditional medicine as well as of the martial arts. "Acupuncture meridians were interpreted as conduits for Qi. Organ systems and diseased states revealed balances and imbalances of Qi. Herbal medicine, massage, and moxibustion developed as therapeutic attempts to regulate Qi within the human body" (p. 211). A discussion of the author's plans for studying the phenomena he describes with methods of cosmopolitan medicine and modern physics brings Encounters with Qi to a fitting conclusion. Photos and an index enrich the interest and usefulness of the text. Readers familiar with Chinese medicine and those who have studied scholarly works on this topic (for example, those of Ralph Croizier, Arthur Kleinman, Joseph Needham, Manfred Porkert, Marjorie Topley, and Paul Unschuld) will be interested in the stages of the author's medical-intellectual trip and the problems set for him by the collision of two different medical cultures. Does the Chinese tradition present, to those of us trained in other settings, phenomena, modes of observation, empirical correlations and generalizations, theories of function, and practices conducive to the maintenance and restoration of health that are not recognized in the theory and practice of cosmopolitan medicine? The results of Eisenberg 's future investigations should shed light on some of these questions. Those readers with no prior...