This reference work is meant primarily for Western practitioners of Chinese medicine treating conditions isolated and named by Western medical diagnoses. Chinese medicine is here defined as standard, contemporary, professional Chinese medicine as taught at provincial Chinese medical schools using acupuncture-moxibustion and multi-ingredient Chinese medicinal formulas. Seventy-two disorders include acne vulgaris, celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, oral leukoplakia, osteoporosis, peptic ulcers, scleroderma, trigeminal neuralgia, and urolithiasis. Entries include introductions, Chinese disease categorization, disease causes and mechanisms, treatment based on pattern discrimination, a remarks section for miscellany and fleshier explanations, and finally endnotes. A nice feature includes disorders labeled by bodily region (endocrine and metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurologic, genitourinary, dental and oral, etc.) Appendices include Chinese, English, and French language bibliographies, and a formula index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) "An absolute must for your library......in the top 10 of books in Chinese Medicine." -- New Zealand Register of Acupuncturists Newsletter "This book will not be gathering dust on any practitioner's shelf." -- Ray Knudsen Reviews Since the middle of the 20th century at least, Chinese doctors in China have been working out the most commonly seen Chinese medical patterns of modern Western diseases. This book follows that tradition. We have taken this approach becuase this book is meant primarily for use by Western practitioners, and Western medicine's diagnostic nosology is the dominant one in the West. Most Western patients come to Western practitioners of Chinese medicine with a pre-established Western medical diagnosis. This is what they are seeking treatment for and this is what they feel most comfortable talking about. It is the lingua franca of the Western health care marketplace. It is our experience that, rightly or wrongly, even most Western Chinese medical practitioners themselves mainly think in terms of Western disease diagnoses. Thus the need for textbooks such as this. Some of Bob's other credits include being a Fellow and Governor of the National Academy of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine, a founder, past President, and Lifetime Fellow of the Acupuncture Association of Colorado, a founding member of the National Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine Alliance, and a Fellow of the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine in the U.K. In addition, Bob has been the editor of the Colorado Acupuncturist and The Journal of the National Academy of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine. He has written, edited, and translated more than 75 books and scores of articles which have been published in professional and popular journals and magazines all over the world. Bob has taught at dozens of American acupuncture schools and Chinese medicine colleges as well as at a number of national professional conventions and symposia. He regularly teaches throughout Europe and has taught in Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. Bob is coauthor of an NIH-funded acupuncture! research protocol on AIDS-related peripheral neuropathy, the report of which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In addition, Bob is a founder of the Council of Oriental Medical Publishers and is Colorado Commissioner of Clan Sinclair. Bob's hobbies include gardening, genealogy, reading historical fiction, walking/hiking, skiing, and sailing Difficult to Treat, Knotty Diseases In modern Chinese medicine, the kinds of Western diseases discussed in this book are mostly referred to as "difficult to treat, knotty diseases." This means they they are chronic, complex conditions commonly developed over decades due to faulty diet, lifestyle, and mental-emotional habits compounded by constitution and aging. These conditions are mostly not self-limiting, an they rarely present as a single, discrete pattern. In fact, based on our clinical experience treating Western patients with these kinds of diseases, we would say that most patients will display not less than three, often five, and sometimes eight or more patterns concomitantly. This means that one cannot rely on the simple formulas for simple patterns which tend to be the norm in textbooks such as this. However, that does not mean that such multipattern presentations are insoluble. Complex combinations are made up of nothing but simple aggregates. In order to treat such complex presentations, all one ever has to do is tease apart the individual patterns, state the treatment principles for each pattern, and insure that the treatment plan (whether acupuncture or Chinese medicinals) addresses each of these stated principles. According to Wan Wen-rong, there are five keys for improving one's treatment of difficult, knotty diseases: 1. Strenghtening one's proficient mastery of basic theory To us, this means memorizing verbatim the key