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Background
on Constitution Medicine
A brand new science was launched by Lee Jema (1836-1900)
a century ago in the latter part of the Korean Chosun Dynasty.
In
1894 Lee Jema asserted in his book Dongyi Soose Bowon
(Longevity and Life Preservation in Oriental Medicine), that
each person is born with a different organ structure and
therefore have different characters, temperaments, and
physiological and pathological phenomena. He asserted that even
though people have the same illness, they need different
medicines depending on their respective natural organ
structures.
This
assertion of his was based on his own experience. Even
though he was a medical doctor, he suffered from a chronic
illness. He tried everything to cure himself, but was
unable to heal himself. He cured other people with similar
symptoms, but the same medicine was ineffective on himself.
This lead him to repeated research into the reason, and he
came to realize that, in contrast to the others, he had a rare
constitution, taeyangin, so the cures for others couldn't work
on him. Lee Jema finally cured himself, creating his own
recipe appropriate to his constitution, and with that personal
experience he was able to work out the theory of constitution
medicine.
His
book Dongyi Soose Bowon has the reasons for the
deficiency and excess syndromes of the organs, which vary with
the individual; the way to distinguish the different
constitutions by physiological and pathological characteristics
and figure; the list of medicines and prescriptions classified
by him according to the constitutions; and his experiences in
practical healing.
In
its time, that book was very amazing and revolutionary. Lee
Jema in his book not only made the extraordinary assertion
that distinguishing syndromes is nonsense because the eight main
syndromes that are the essence of Chinese medicine (yin, yang,
cold, heat, external, internal, excess and deficiency) are
already set by the human constitution, but also that illness of
the six meridians doesn't come as orderly as prescribed by the
famous Chinese doctor Zhang Zhongjing in his book Shanghanlun;
that the phases of illness are already set according to the
natural born constitution of the individual.
Besides,
he evolved his unique organ theory different from that of
traditional Chinese medicine. He dared to criticize the
system of Chinese medicine uncritically passed down for
millennia, and even shook its roots, indeed a surprising event
given the situation of the time, when Chinese science was
dominant.
The
concept of constitution defined by Lee Jema can be summed
up thusly:
Firstly,
people are born with different organ structures.
Secondly, these differences affect the form and looks of
the body, so a person has a unique figure according to his
constitution.
Thirdly, the differences affect the temperament and
personality, so a person has a different character.
Fourthly, the differences affect the physiology and
pathology of the human body, so the human body manifests
different phenomena.
Fifthly, all these differences form a constitution, and
therefore a person must use a different cure and method of
health care according to his constitution.
However,
the constitution theory of Lee Jema until recently wasn't
widely accepted even among doctors of Oriental medicine, and
only a few scientists studied it and kept it alive.
The value of his theory was not much acknowledged, because it
was too new a theory to be easily linked to the existing system
of Chinese medicine, and too difficult a theory for existing
scientists to easily accept.
There
was another reason: this scientific system had its own limits.
For example, in order to apply constitution medicine to a
patient in clinical practice, it is necessary to first classify
the patient's constitution, but the classifying norms explained
in his book aren't sufficient to accurately make the
classification.
Because
the medicine used for this constitution medicine has strong
characteristics inclined toward one side in contrast to the
traditional Chinese medicine, using it on a misclassified
patient could bring side effects. Therefore the scientific
evolution was hindered by the reluctance to use it in cases of
doubt about the constitution classification.
Lately,
though, this constitution medicine is going through some drastic
changes. Because of its amazing and outstanding curative
efficacy, it is under constant study by minority scientists and
is being completed little by little, giving it its chance to
evolve.
In
1965 the outstanding Korean doctor Kwon Dowon published
his dissertation, in which he found that the four constitutions
discovered by Lee Jema can be divided into eight
sub-constitutions, and launched a new kind of acupuncture
treatment in addition to the medicine-based treatments presented
by Lee Jema.
His constitution acupuncture attracted much attention due to its
great and rapid efficacy, and gave people reason to newly
acknowledge the theory of constitution medicine on which is
based the theory of constitution acupuncture.
The
Constitution Medicine of Lee Jema
According to Lee Jema, each person is born with one
of the four constitutions. The criteria for classifying
constitutions did not depend on facial traits, skin color or
bodily form, but on the differences from birth in the
functioning of the organs. This was an amazing opinion,
because he asserted it in a time when there weren't any modern
diagnostic devices such as X-ray machines and Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) which could directly measure the size and function
of the organs.
It isn't possible to know exactly how he based his assertion
that each person is born with different organ structures.
He
was a doctor of Oriental medicine who studied Chinese medicine,
so undoubtedly he was influenced by many classical books of
Chinese medicine such as Huangdi Neijing and Sahnghanlun, and
others. But classifying human constitutions by the
differences in the natural born organ structures is his unique
contribution, not found in any of the Chinese classical
literature.
One
could guess that he was able through clairvoyance to uncover the
secrets of organ structures hidden in human bodies, or that he
discovered through clinical research that organs tend to
function differently in different people. Maybe based on
such research he came up with his constitution theory.
The
theoretical background of his unique assertion is indeed the
topic of study for later scientists, and there are many
dissertations published in this field.
However, the most important question is, does his assertion that
people have from birth different organ structures stand up to
objective fact? This is the core question for anyone who
tries to study the unique Korean constitution medicine.
In
the beginning, I, too, had many doubts, and gave it much
thought. I spent much time striving to find an unequivocal
answer to this question, is this core theory of constitution
medicine, that people are born with different organ structures,
just a device to come up with a prescription, or is it really
supported by objective fact? An intellectual can't easily
accept or study a new theory without this kind of serious
thought. I eventually came to accept this constitution
theory of Lee Jema as truth, studying the theory and
experiencing myself clinical healing in accordance with it, in
spite of the fact that it is not yet perfectly proven by modern
scientific methods. This is the conviction that comes from
my own clinical experience.
How
closely a theory conforms to objective fact depends on the
degree to which the expected result comes from treatment done
according to the theory. Even if a theory in itself is
perfectly elegant, it should be discarded if it doesn't lead to
the expected result in the real world. Any branch of science,
especially medicine, should be judged not by the elegance of its
theory, but by the results of its healing in the real world.
I
have no doubt that this constitution medicine will soon be
proven by modern scientific methods. It was only about one
hundred years ago that it became known that people are born with
different types of blood. The discovery of blood types lead to
miraculous changes in medical history.
I
believe that if the fact that people are born with different
constitutions is proven by scientific methods, and if the day
comes when constitutions, like blood types, can be classified by
simple and objective means, the world medical history will once
again go through revolutionary changes.
I
am hoping that the recent high-profile research into gene
mapping will provide a key to scientifically unlock the mystery
of constitution medicine. According to research by
constitution medical doctors, constitutions are by birth and
hereditary. If there is a clear relationship between genes
and the hereditary constitutions, the study of genes can lead to
establishing the existence of constitutions.
An
American institute authoritative in gene research found that a
person's obesity is not necessarily related to how much one
eats, that there clearly is a specific constitution of those who
tend to get fat no matter how little they eat. The same
penicillin efficiently kills bacteria in one person, but in
another causes fatal side effects. It seems evident, that
gene research will prove that there exists also a constitution
that is hypersensitive to penicillin.
Up
till now, medicines are prescribed uniformly without considering
the genetically specific character or the race or individual,
but in the future there will be medicine adjusted to the
individual person.
Thanks
to the completion of the gene project, today's Western medicine,
which equally applies the same medicine to everyone with the
same symptoms, will soon change its medical paradigm to
treatment which puts importance on the genetically specific
character of the individual. Western medicine, which
treats only the ill body part as the object of treatment, will
become much more attentive of the relationship between the ill
part and the whole body. This is the treatment paradigm of
Oriental medicine, especially Korean constitution medicine.
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Introduction
