Traditional Chinese Medicine
ICD-11 Chapter 26, TM Module 1China · Neolithic roots; Huangdi Neijing compiled ~2nd c. BCE
Health is the unobstructed movement of qi, blood, and fluids through a living landscape of organs, channels, and climates. Disease is a pattern, not a lone part.
Bianzheng — pattern differentiation. The same Western disease may be many patterns; the same pattern may appear as many complaints.
Yin / yangFive phases (wuxing)Eight principlesZang-fu organsQi, blood, jin-ye, jing, shenChannel network
ICD-11 Traditional Medicine Module 1. National systems in China, plus Kampo and Korean medicine lineages.
Ayurveda
ICD-11 TM Module 2Indian subcontinent · Charaka and Sushruta Samhitas, early first millennium CE on older oral strata
Life (ayu) is the union of body, senses, mind, and self. Health is a dynamic balance of three doshas, digestive fire (agni), and unobstructed channels (srotas).
Nidana-panchaka and dosha-dushya sammurchana — cause, precursors, signs, and the meeting of dosha with tissue.
Vata, pitta, kaphaPrakriti / vikritiAgni and amaDhatus and srotasRasa, virya, vipaka, prabhavaDinacharya and ritucharya
ICD-11 TM Module 2 with Siddha and Unani. AYUSH ministry, NAMASTE terminology.
Unani Tibb
ICD-11 TM Module 2Greco-Arabic medicine, developed across Persia, the Levant, and South Asia · Galen to Ibn Sina (Canon of Medicine, 11th c.) to South Asian Unani
The body is governed by four humors. Mizaj (temperament) is the person's native mixture; disease is a shift of quality or quantity of humor.
Sue-mizaj — dystemperament — with or without humor accumulation.
Four humorsMizajSix essential factors (asbab-e-sitta zarooriya)Quwa (faculties)Tabiyat (healing power of nature)
ICD-11 TM Module 2. Practiced widely in South Asia and parts of the Middle East.
Siddha
ICD-11 TM Module 2Tamil Nadu · Attributed to the Eighteen Siddhars; classical Tamil medical corpus
The body is a miniature cosmos. Three doshas (vali, azhal, iyam) plus pulse, urine, and fecal examination guide a highly observational medicine.
Mukkutram imbalance read through pulse, tongue, eyes, voice, and waste.
Vali / azhal / iyamEnvagai thervu (eightfold examination)Pulse loreMineral and metallic preparations (with strict lineage)
ICD-11 TM Module 2. Regulated under AYUSH in India.
Kampo
Japan, from Chinese medicine · Imported from the 5th–6th c.; reformed in Edo and Meiji periods
Sho — the overall pattern of the person in this moment — determines a matching classical formula, often used as a fixed extract in modern Japan.
Match the person to a formula's sho rather than composing from single herbs first.
ShoYin/yang, deficiency/excess, heat/coldAbdominal diagnosis (fukushin)Formula-centered practice
Kampo extracts are integrated into Japanese national health insurance.
Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine)
Tibetan plateau, Himalayan cultural sphere · Four Tantras (rGyud-bzhi), 8th–12th c. synthesis of Indian, Chinese, Persian, and indigenous streams
Three nyes-pa (rlung, mkhris-pa, bad-kan) echo the doshas. Mind, karma, and subtle winds are clinical, not metaphorical.
Nyes-pa imbalance with hot/cold and location (digestive, vascular, nervous).
Three nyes-paSeven bodily constituentsUrine analysisPulseFive-element theoryGentle and forceful therapies
Recognized in India, Bhutan, Mongolia, and parts of China; growing research corpus.
Western herbalism
Europe and the Mediterranean, later North America · Hippocrates and Dioscorides through medieval physic gardens, Culpeper, Physiomedicalism, Eclectics, 20th c. revitalization
Plants as medicines with tissue affinities. Modern vitalist herbalism reads six tissue states and matches herbs by energetics, not only constituents.
Thomson, Cook, and Wood: excitation, depression, atrophy, stagnation, irritation, relaxation — the Western cousin of eight principles.
Tissue statesOrgan affinitiesHerbal actions (bitter, astringent, aromatic, etc.)Eclectic specificsPhytochemistry as a later layer
Folk, clinical, and naturopathic practice. Archives: Henriette's Herbal, Michael Moore / SWSBM, PFAF, Dr. Duke.
Greek humoral medicine
Eastern Mediterranean · Hippocratic corpus, 5th–4th c. BCE; Galen's synthesis
Four qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry) mix into four humors and four temperaments. Treatment is by opposites, food is medicine, and the physician is a servant of physis.
Dystemperament of a part or the whole; plethora vs deficiency of a humor.
Four humorsFour temperamentsSix non-naturalsCrisis and coction of fevers
Ancestral to Unani, medieval European physic, and the temperament language still used in vitalist herbalism.
Naturopathy & nature cure
19th–20th c. Europe and North America, grafting hydrotherapy, herbalism, and vis medicatrix naturae · Nature Cure and Kneipp lineages into 20th c. naturopathic schools
Remove obstacles to cure, support the healing power of nature, treat the whole person, prevention first. Traditional systems are source languages; the method is ecological.
Functional, terrain, and constitutional rather than a single classical pattern set.
Vis medicatrix naturaeToxin / drainage thinkingHydrotherapyNutritionLifestyle as primary medicine
Licensed in some jurisdictions; highly variable training. Best used as a lifestyle frame, not a license to delay emergency care.