Sasang Constitutional Typology: A Beginner’s Guide to Sasang Constitutional Medicine

책 소개

Preface More than hundred years have passed since Lee Je-ma's death in 1900. In Korea, the ‘O-ring test' that had become popular in the 1990's and the recent hit TV show "Taeyangin Lee Je-ma" have together put Constitutional Medicine in the limelight. In the past 10 years, people have begun to recognize "constitution" in context of the Sasang Constitutional Medicine, a division of Korean Medicine. Most people who are first interested in Constitutional Medicine want to know what type of constitution they have and how to live a healthy life most compatible with their constitutional type. Then, they begin to learn more about constitutional typology and try to guess what their constitutional type could be. Some people become dubious, which is natural considering that there are not many objective methods for diagnosing the constitutional type. Traditional practitioners had strived in the past to discover an objective tool for constitutional diagnosis, producing a few possibilities such as morphological analysis, blood analysis, and genetical analysis. We are anticipating that more objective ways of diagnosing the constitutional type will be discovered in the near future. It is disturbing to see people consider Sasang Constitutional Medicine as some sort of food remedy with a level of sophistication that simply states "beef is compatible for my constitutional type, but pork is not." Of course, the Sasang Constitutional Medicine does provide information on the compatibility of specific foods for the different constitutional types, which is after all an essential element in preventing and managing pathological conditions. However, there is much more than this to Lee Je-ma's Constitutional Medicine. Throughout his life, Lee Je-ma constantly asked questions like "What is the human being?" "What is the difference between a sage and a commoner?" "Why does the pathological development of the same disease differ among people?" "Why are certain people more likely to fall prey to particular diseases while others are immune to them?" He studied Confucianism and Korean Medicine and searched for the answers to these questions all his life. In his last days, he compiled the results of his search in his books 『Gyeokchigo (格致藁)』 and 『Dongeui Soose Bowon (東醫壽世保元)』 which established the foundations for Sasang Constitutional Medicine. The studies made by Lee Je-ma are involved in two main fields: anthropology and Sasang Constitutional Medicine. The purpose of studying humanity in Lee Je-ma's viewpoint was to pursue the morally accomplished man. But this is rendered almost impossible because of the social environments a person is exposed to, known as "Humanly activity (人事)," which consist of two main elements: "Ah (我)," or a person's internal factors, and "Bi Ah (非我)," or the surrounding external factors. Each constitutional type has its natural state of mind (恒心) and base desires (心慾) which make him morally imperfect. Lee Je-ma proposed his theories on psychology and morality of the humankind and urged people to resolve their "internal" problems by rectifying the self (正己) and to resolve their "external" problems in relationships by understanding the human mind (知人). The ultimate goal in Sasang Constitutional Medicine is a healthy life. But there are differences in the physical organ structural schemes between the constitutional types which give rise to the differences in physiological and pathological conditions for different constitutional types. Lee Je-ma made profound studies on the pathogenic factor, pathological development, and prevention and treatment of disease that differ for each constitutional type. Lee Je-ma explains his theories in anthropology and constitutional medicine in a simple and clear way so that even a layman would be able to apply them in practical life. Lee Je-ma mentions in his book 『Dongeui Soose Bowon (東醫壽世保元)』 that "If a town of ten thousand has only one potter, there would be a shortage of pottery, and if a vil…

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