Encounters With Qi: Exploring Chinese Medicine

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, Jun 6, 1995 - Health & Fitness - 260 pages
When Bill Moyers visited China to explore the mysteries, and the healing potential, of Chinese medicine for his acclaimed PBS series "Healing and the Mind," he sought out David Eisenberg as his guide.

For every reader fascinated by the seemingly fantastical aspects of Chinese medicine, from acupuncture addiction to Qi Gong martial arts, this captivating book offers deeper and more detailed encounters with the physicians and patients, the mystics and the martial artists, who were featured on television.

Here is a sympathetic, yet objective appraisal of the concept of Qi (chee), the vital energy which is the unifying principle of Chinese medicine. Here are Chinese sages from the Yellow Emperor of 2700 B.C. to the very modern Dr. Fang, who remarks, "Acupuncture without Qi is only as effective as one man's sticking needles in another." And here are Chinese people from all walks of life as they seek relief, through a rebalancing of their Qi, their vital energy, for ailments from colds to cancer.
 

Contents

FOREWORD
11
The Woman on the Bus
21
Preface
28
Tongues Pulses and Strange Diagnoses
51
Unanswered Questions
60
The Sisters Wang
79
Acupuncture and Massage
91
Herbal Medicine
122
The Qi Gong Masters
136
The Doctors
151
Freuds Not Here
169
Testing Qi
197
The Marriage of Chinese and Western
231
AFTERWORD
239
INDEX
245
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

David Eisenberg lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Bibliographic information