Over the past few decades, there has been a great surge of interest world-wide in Chinese herbal
medicine and acupuncture. Many people in different parts of the world have begun to study
Chinese medicine. The publication of this book will certainly help the integration of Western
medicine with Chinese medicine which, being free of side-effects, will bring additional benefits
to people in the West.

Giovanni Maciocia has studied Chinese medicine in my college three times, so he is an alumnus
of ours. During his stay in China, he studied conscientiously and respected his teachers and
clinical instructors. He has flexibly applied what he has learnt in China to the conditions in the
West, and successfully treated a large number of patients. Students and practitioners both in and
outside China speak highly of his contributions to the popularization of Chinese medicine in the
West.

This book is not only a textbook for students of Chinese medicine, but also a reference book for
practitioners in the West. I believe this book will be very influential in spreading Chinese
medicine throughout the world.

Z.Z.Y.

Preface

This book is intended to be the companion volume to the "Foundations of Chinese Medicine",
setting out the application of the theory of Chinese medicine to the treatment of specific diseases
with both acupuncture and Chinese herbs.

The discussion is centred around the old Chinese disease-symptoms, e.g. "headache",
"dizziness", "abdominal pain", etc. Although these are normally referred to as "diseases" in
Chinese medicine, they are symptoms rather than diseases in a Western medical sense. In a few
cases, however, I do discuss actual diseases as defined in Western medicine; these are asthma,
allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, nephritis, myalgic encephalomyelitis, Parkinson's disease, multiple
sclerosis, the common cold and influenza.

This textbook sets out the treatment for 34 common diseases. With four exceptions - asthma,
allergic rhinitis, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and multiple sclerosis - all appear in textbooks
of Chinese medicine.

The theory of allergic asthma and allergic rhinitis presented in this book is entirely new; of
course, it is far from perfect and will need constant revision according to clinical experience and
research. The theory of ME, similarly new, is based on my own clinical experience, although the
concepts of "residual pathogenic factor" and "Latent Heat" on which it is based are very old.