Since the beginning of time human beings have tried to stay healthy and alive. Because of humans desire to persist, many kinds of medicine have been conceived. Today, the art of healing has evolved into two very separate ideas. America is dominated by Western medicine and there needs to be a change. Eastern medicine has been practiced by humans for many years, yet still doesn't receive the recognition it deserves. Although both very different in philosophy, if both practices joined and shared ideas there would be a medical revolution. America could benefit from a hospital that practices Western medicine and Eastern medicine under the same roof. A hospital that gives patients a choice in their method of healing. A Sanatorium that offers open minded doctors that know both sides of the medical spectrum and will appropriately work with Western and Eastern philosophy to accomplish complete wellness. Therefore, it is necessary for both practices of healing to combine ideas and methods in order to achieve new medical advancements. .
The core assumption of the two are entirely different. The Western assumption is that the universe is knowable. In the East, they believe the universe is unknowable. Western medicine tries to know absolute truths. In the East, they see the world as "observable." "You can observe ways of living in the world that make you more comfortable but not discover the way the world works to conquer it" (Beinfield, 24). Another fundamental difference is the way information is understood and processed. The West uses "reductionism," breaking things/ people into their parts. The East operates from a point of "connectionism," putting a part or an individual problem in the context of its whole(Beinfield,112). While The West focuses more on the illness in the person, the East focuses more on the person who has the illness. A metaphor that illustrates this well is that in Western science, to study a tree, a scientist looks at the bark and the root system and the leaves, takes the tree apart to study the functioning of each particular part.
