CHINESE MEDICINE IN SINGAPORE : A GEOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history which includes a unique system of maintaining health, diagnostic methods, principles of treatment, and medical prescriptions. This is based largely on the Chinese cosmological concepts that emphasize harmony and order within the human body system as well as between man and the environment. The aim of the this exercise in cultural geography is to explore human environment relationships as manifested in Chinese medicine. This study shows that Chinese medicine is based on concepts of human ecology and environmental determinism. The ecological concerns of maintaining harmony is embedded in the Chinese concepts of yin-yang and five-elements that are central to Chinese culture and Chinese medicine. The concept of environmental determinism is endorsed in the theoretical aspects of Chinese medicine which accepts that environment has an influence on human health and sickness. Lastly, the study of Chinese medicine illustrates that some 300 to 500 aspects of flora and fauna is used as cures for sickness or for the maintenance of good health. In Chinese medicine, illnesses are diagnosed imbalances and disequilibrium in the body. To cure these illnesses is thus to bring the body back to equilibrium, either by food therapy, herbal therapy, acupuncture, or massage. Based on a survey of 100 Singaporean Chinese, the findings indicate that more than half of the respondents still observe a healthy diet based on maintaining a balance of yin-yang principles and observing food taboos associated with Chinese health care. In Singapore, "heating" herbs such as ginseng and Chinese Angelica root are often cooked with "heating food" to reinforce strength, and to restore "vitality" in the body. At the same time, Singapore's tropical climate has largely influenced the use of common "heat-clearing" prescriptions and herbs (eg. barley, chrysanthemum, American ginseng and antelope's horn) to reduce high fevers. The study shows that the Singapore Chinese medicinal knowledge and use of Chinese medicine is confined essentially to common and affordable medicinal products and herbs such as chrysanthemum flower, American ginseng, barley, wolfberry seed, Antelope's horn and Chinese Angelica root, which provide for simple and easy-to-use remedies for less-serious ailments like fevers, coughs, colds and flu. The future role of Chinese medicine suggests that the knowledge of Chinese medicine will continue to exist at least at the general level. This knowledge is passed down orally, generally within the family. Chinese sinsehs are still consulted for ailments such as asthma, fever, gastric problems, cold, cough, stomachache, constipation and diarrhoea. The structure of Chinese medical halls however has changed over the years. The expertise of "folk pharmacists" is dying. Chinese medicine is a nature-based method of healing which uses non-surgical and non-chemical therapy. Chinese medicine thus serves as 'alternative medicine' to modern Western medicinal science.