http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/world/asia/chinese-medicine-paul-unschuld.html 2016-09-23 15:58:08 An Expert on Chinese Medicine, but No New Age Healer Paul U. Unschuld has done more to promote Chinese medicine than perhaps any other Westerner, but he sees it more as a clue to the culture than as an exotic cure. === BERLIN — One day in 1971, the doorbell rang at Paul U. Unschuld’s apartment in Munich. He opened the door to find a young man, who laconically said in English: “Hi, I am James Quinn, C.I.A. Tell me about the military usage of So began the German academic’s rise from relative obscurity to his position as the West’s leading authority on ancient Chinese healing practices. One of the first Western scholars to tackle Chinese medicine in a systematic and serious way, Mr. Unschuld has seen his subject more as a way to interpret Chinese civilization than as a New Age answer to modern medicine. Respected and sometimes resented for his scrupulousness in translating Chinese medical texts, Mr. Unschuld, a tall man of regal bearing, harks back to an era of scholarship, when people who engaged with For Mr. Unschuld, that has included amassing a collection of statues of medical deities that is planned to be a centerpiece of Berlin’s Mr. Unschuld has also collected 1,100 antique manuscripts that could give clues to how medicine was practiced at China’s grass-roots level. The manuscripts contain more than 40,000 prescriptions that are being examined for promising ingredients, with some of the remedies for In his spare time, Mr. Unschuld has led German government delegations to China, and has written books on how medicine helps to explain China’s rise to global prominence. “If there are two words I’d associate with Unschuld, it’s rigor and exactitude,” said Phil Garrison, a teacher at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego and at the Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Seneca Falls, N.Y. “But these qualities are a double-edged sword.” That is because Mr. Unschuld, who is as blunt as he is outspoken, stands at the center of a long and contentious debate in the West over Chinese medicine. For many, it is the ur-alternative to what they see as the industrialized and chemicalized medicine that dominates in the West. For others, it is little more than charlatanism, with its successes attributed to Mr. Unschuld is a challenge to both ways of thinking. He has just finished a 28-year English translation of the three principal parts of the foundational work of Chinese medicine: the Huangdi Neijing, or Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, But this reflects a deep respect for the ancient authors the detractors of Chinese medicine sometimes lack. Mr. Unschuld hunts down obscure terms and devises consistent terminologies that are sometimes not easy to read, but are faithful to the original text. Almost universally, his translations are regarded as trailblazing — making available, for the first time in a Western language, the complete foundational works of Chinese medicine from up to 2,000 years ago. “There exist any number of critical editions of the works of Hippocrates or Galen” from ancient Greece, said Don Harper, a professor at the University of Chicago, who studies ancient Chinese religious and medical texts. “Paul is the first to provide anything comparable to the Chinese corpus.” But for many Western practitioners of Chinese medicine, Mr. Unschuld is an uncompromising guide to the Chinese classics. His books sell well, but many Westerners prefer more accessible translations that use more familiar terms. “People were very threatened by what he said,” said Z’ev Rosenberg, an author, and a practitioner and teacher of Chinese medicine. “He said you need access to the sources and the terminology.” And then there is the issue of . With his extremely dry humor, Mr. Unschuld likens Chinese medicine to the herbal formulas of the medieval Christian mystic At his office in Berlin’s famous “Excuse me, but acupuncture and herbs can’t help you there,” he said, with a laugh. “But there are some health problems where these therapies may be beneficial, and, hence, I’m not against it when someone uses it.” At times, Mr. Unschuld almost seems perplexed that his field of study actually became an alternative source of medical treatment. He said Chinese medicine’s popularity in the West can trace its roots to the Cold War, to 1971 to be exact. That is when James Reston, a columnist for The New York Times, This was during the Kissinger-Nixon rapprochement with China, and the start of China’s decades-long reopening to the outside world. Chinese medicine became part of the country’s allure. Soon came the visit to Mr. Unschuld from Mr. Quinn, the C.I.A. agent; the opening of Chinese Mr. Unschuld’s interest in medicine was not entirely unique in his family. His great-grandfather had treated the king of Belgium and other European nobility. Mr. Unschuld says he grew up in a household filled with vases and other chinoiserie donated by grateful patients. His father had been a pharmacist who collected pharmaceutical artifacts and pharmacopoeias of past centuries. Initially, Mr. Unschuld earned a degree in pharmacy in Munich along with his wife, Ulrike. But he had also been fascinated with foreign languages and had completed a parallel track in Chinese studies. In 1969, before what he assumed would be a career in the pharmaceutical industry, the couple went to Taiwan for a year to improve their Chinese language skills. Instead, Mr. Unschuld spent the year interviewing medical practitioners. The resulting Ph.D. thesis started his career as an expert on Chinese medicine, and for 20 years he headed the His purely academic approach, however, makes him a difficult figure for China to embrace. While widely respected for his knowledge and translations, he has done little to advance the government’s agenda of promoting Chinese medicine as soft power. Echoing other critics, he describes China’s translations of the classics as “complete swindles,” saying they are done with little care and only a political goal in mind. For Mr. Unschuld, Chinese medicine is far more interesting as an allegory for China’s mental state. “It is a metaphor for enlightenment,” he says. Especially striking, Mr. Unschuld says, is that the Chinese approach puts responsibility on the individual, as reflected in the statement “wo Ming zai wo, but zai tian In China, Mr. Unschuld said, “Medicine and politics are similar: You don’t blame others, you blame yourself.” He added, “You ask: ‘What did I do wrong? What made me vulnerable? What can I do against it?’ This is why China has risen.”