Liver Qi Stagnation Turning Into Heat – An Underrated Pattern?

As Chinese medicine continues to make its transition to the West it is necessary for practitioners to consider
what changes this might mean in terms of how it needs to be practised. Certainly our patients tend to
present their symptoms somewhat differently to how they are described in both modern and ancient
Chinese texts. We also need to consider whether modern Western lifestyles create different aetiological
pressures on our health. As the great physician Zhang Yuan-sen (13th century CE) wrote, ‘No movements
of qi are identical. Ancient and modern times differ. Ancient formulas are helpless for modern diseases.’