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Are Yin and Yang & the Five Elements Scientific?

concept embodying yin and yang

23 Mar Are Yin and Yang & the Five Elements Scientific?

Posted at 14:08h in All, Medical Journal by
5 element acupuncture
Yin Yang and the Five Elements are the Standards of Oriental Medicine to Classify Our Body
If modern medicine classifies the organs by its spatial placement, Oriental Medicine classifies by its function. For example, modern medicine classifies lungs as “two chunks of masses at the chest”, whereas Oriental Medicine classifies all organs that perform the respiratory function as a whole, as “lungs”. That would include the organ, lung, itself, but also respiratory tract, nose, skin, and sweat pores too. This kind of special standards are used in Oriental Medicine and of them all, the two most important are the Yin and Yang and the Five Elements (fire, water, wood, metal, and earth).
‘Yin’ is Having Too Little Energy, and ‘Yang’ is Too Much Energy
‘Yin’ generally means deficiency of some kind in the body and ‘Yang’ means an excess of something. So, in Oriental Medicine, ‘Yin’ would be referring to organs that perform resting and saving to counteract on deficiency and ‘Yang’ refers to organs that perform an activity that use up the excess energy. It is like the concept of ‘sympathetic nerves/parasympathetic nerves’ and ‘autonomous nerves/dysautonomia induced nerves’ in Modern medicine but Oriental Medicine breaks down the concept into organs.
‘Yin and Yang’ is the Conceptualization of Functions of Organs
If the concept of Yin and Yang is based on the function and the range each organ performs, then the Five Elements are the organs symbolized into the elements of nature. For example, the spread of the heat all over the body through the circulation of blood is much like the image of fire flaring out that heart, the organ which causes the flow, is named ‘the organ of fire. In the same aspect, the kidney is ‘the organ of water’ for it filters and cleanses the body, the liver is ‘the organ of the tree for it keeps our body firm and strong, the stomach is ‘the organ of the soil’ for it absorbs and takes in outside nutrients into our body, and lung is ‘the organ of gold’ for it blocks the external waste from coming into our body.
The ‘Endocrine Theory’ of Modern Medicine is Another Expression of ‘the Theory of Five Lines’ of Oriental Medicine

Looking into the Yin and Yang and the functions of organs, it is clinically proven that decreased performance of the kidney has a greater probability of causing heart-related diseases. This kind of phenomenon is explained as the weakening of ‘water-energy which makes it difficult to control ‘the fire energy’ in the concept of the Five Elements. It describes relationships of these energies to be compatible(상생) and incompatible(상극) to express more complicated functions of the human body. This concept of the Five Elements is very similar to the Endocrine system of Modern medicine. The endocrine system explains the constant cycle of excreted hormones by offsetting each other’s power, creating a balance. This organic structure of organs explained through the Endocrine system is synonymous to the concept of the Five Elements.

Though the jargons and ways of explaining the concepts are different, the Yin and Yang and the Five Elements of Oriental Medicine can be said to be identical to the concepts widely accepted and used in Modern Medicine. Or, considering that the idea of sympathetic nerves and parasympathetic nerves are found only recently (less than 100 years ago), Oriental Medicine, which studied and confirmed through practice these concepts thousands of years ago, can be said to be more ‘accurate’ and ‘practical’.

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