Practitioners of TCM consider it an empirical "science" of healing that has proved its worth in Asian countries for more than 3,000 years (Wallnšfer and von Rottauscher 1975). According to Chinese government figures, there are now more than 2,000 TCM hospitals throughout the country (Hou 1991). Unlike Western scientific medicine, which aims to identify and counteract specific pathogens for different disease states, TCM views all illnesses as the consequence of a unitary cause, namely an imbalance of vital energies in the body. The term Qi, which translates roughly as "divine breath," refers to these putative energies, which are assumed by TCM to permeate everything in the universe. With respect to biological organisms, Qi is rather like the concept of elan vital, a hypothetical "life force" that was abandoned in Western medicine when scientific discoveries made it apparent that there is no essential difference in chemical constituents or processes between living and inanimate matter.
TCM's advocates assert that herbs, moxibustion, massage, breathing exercises, acupuncture, and certain foods are able to restore the balance of the Yin and Yang, variants of Qi energy, which are supposed to flow in invisible channels in the body called "meridians." By balancing Qi in this way, they say, health is maintained or restored. Some of the means for achieving this balance can look rather strange to those accustomed to scientific medicine. Take, for instance, something widely sold in China, the "505 Magic Bag." It is "shaped like an apron and, containing 50 [herbal] ingredients, [it] can prevent and treat many diseases of the stomach and intestines . . . [when] the bag [is worn] close to the navel" (Hou 1991).7