프랑스와 동아시아의학과의 만남

Meeting of the West with the Far East Asia medicine in Fance : Insufficiency of principle

What is the fundamental cause of the broader gap between East and West medicine? This is a very long story that began in the late Renaissance and still continues today. Why it took so long time from the end of the XIIth century when acupuncture was firt imported to Europe to XX century when it was finally settled in France? We present three cases which caused the delayed establishment : A “blisters” article from Diderot and D’Alembert in the eighteenth century, the practice of acupuncture by Dr. Berlioz in Paris in early 19th century, and the reception of the works of Georges Soulié de Morant in France in the 1930’s. We attempt to show the misunderstanding that has always prevailed between the East and West medicines because of different viewpoint : the West has not understood the richness and subtlety of the approach of East asian thought and wanted to “align” the Asian medical modality to west medicine with inappropriate and insufficient “experiments” without enough explanation of the principles and philosophical backgrounds. It was not the matter of technology but the mutual incomprehension of history and culture.