1930~1940년대 조헌영의 한의학 인식과 동서절충적 의학론

Jo Heonyeong’s Understanding of and Vision for the Future of Korean Traditional Medicine in the 1930-1940’s

Jo Heonyeong’s efforts to revive the debilitated state of Korean Traditional Medicine(KTM) sought to highlight the fundamental characteristics of KTM and offer his vision for its future. In so doing, he emphasized that KTM in its development of a comprehensive system of ideas and methods of treatment was not inferior, but even superior to, Western medicine. Jo Heonyeong countered the argument that KTM was merely the accumulation of experience, by asserting its base in systematic theory, namely that of Yinyang and the Five Elements. According to Jo, there could be no KTM without this theory, which was deployed in part even in Western science. He advocated the Yinyang and Five Elements theory as a key concept in demonstrating the value of the existence of KTM in opposition to Western medicine. In regards to diagnostics and therapeutics, Jo Heonyeong highlighted the strengths of KTM, thanks to the Yinyang and Five Elements theory, in providing patients with fundamental and comprehensive treatment. He also added its popularity to a list of the advantages of KTM. The impoverished Koreans in colonial period were inclined to prefer the much lower priced KTM, due to its use of natural rather than artificial treatments. Jo Heonyeong was one of the most devoted advocates of KTM who stressed its particularities distinguishing it from Western medicine. However, these particularities, paradoxically, contained elements that differed from tradition and what could be likened to Western medical elements. For example, KTM as explained by Jo Heonyeong employed the language and concepts of Western medicine. For Jo Heonyeong, Western medicine not to be rejected, but rather adopted, because it had some advantages in not only medical treatment but also in terms of system. As a result, rather than adhering to KTM, Jo anticipated the new medicine, a fusion of KTM and Western medicine. In short, Jo Heonyeong in the 1930s and 40s not only stressed the particularities of KTM, but also hoped for a syncretic medicine adopting the respective advantages of Eastern and Western medicine.