Navigating through the sea of medicine

Back in 2012, Prof. Zhu Jian-ping first involved me in his research on TCM Terminology Standardization. His multi-million-yuan research project endeavors to standardize medical terms for legal and official purposes.    My involvement over the last four years, yielded one SCI article, several conference papers and participation in many committee meetings.   Although I am not a translator by any definition, I do however enjoy terminology research, and exploring the meaning of different medical characters throughout history and across schools of thought.    I am currently in Beijing for several projects, including  this meeting, who took place between April 24-26. I took a few photos for my archive. 

All of you who have been following my career over the last few years, probably already have a copy of my   “Gold Mirrors and Tongue Reflections”   in your collection. My original research started in 2004, as a direct response to the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003. The main idea was to look back through the history of Chinese medicine, and seek realistic solutions for a hypothetical post-antibiotic era, and learn from everything that has worked in historical attacks of pestilence. Of course, it is understood that in today’s world, the advancements in medicine mean that there are many solutions for dealing with epidemics, through the development of antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines.    But if what we have learned from SARS is an indicator, every now and then there will be a new virus that will be just a little too strong, and will spread just a little too fast, and get out of control just a little before the WHO and the goverments can respond.  Just imagine a world where a virus needs to

My book “Gold Mirrors and Tongue Reflections” has been reviewed in the latest issue of the Journal of Chinese Medicine:  This is a translation of two important historical sources on tongue diagnosis. The first is the Ao Shi Shanghan Jin Jing Lu (Scholar Ao's Golden Mirror Records in Cold Damage), which originated in the Yuan dynasty (1260-1368) and became more detailed as subsequent editions were authored during the Ming dynasty. The second is the Shanghan She Jian (Tongue Reflections in Cold Damage), which was published near the start of the Qing dynasty. Living and working in Beijing for the last ten years has allowed Ioannis Solos to collaborate with some leading Chinese medical experts on this subject. Commencing with a concise history of tongue observation in early Chinese medicine, we come to realise that the method was quite perfunctory until the Song-Jin-Yuan era (960-1368 CE), with references to the tongue