Middle Medicine

During the last years of the Qing Dynasty (around 1900), the bubonic plague swept through Hong Kong, then a British colony. British administrators divided patients into two groups, one of which was treated by Chinese medicine and the other by Western medicine, and evaluated the efficacy of each treatment. The first evaluation indicated that Chinese medicine was 50% more effective than Western medicine. Western doctors in Hong Kong challenged this evaluation and demanded a second evaluation with re-designed parameters. However, the second evaluation also showed that Chinese medicine was effective in 60% of the cases while Western medicine was effective in only 30% of the cases. As a result of this experiment the practice of Chinese medicine was officially allowed in Hong Kong. This historical case is recorded in a well known Chinese medicine book, Yi Xue Zhong Zhong Can Xi Lu (Modifying Chinese and Introducing Western Medicine, Zhang Xi-chun, 1935, reprint 1985, China).