The Institute for Systems Biology has used the term “P4 Medicine” referring to Personalised, Predictive, Preventive and Participatory Medicine. Classical Chinese Medicine/CCM also has its own “P4 Medicine” – Personalised, Predictive, Preventive and Participatory Medicine. Needless to add, although these two versions may be said to share the same thin concept of P4 Medicine, they differ in the account of their thick concepts. This talk will, therefore, explore briefly the two conceptions of Medicine – on the one hand, Biomedicine/Bm today and on the other CCM. The dominant strands of Bm occur within a philosophical framework of Materialism (of Thing-ontology), its Reductionist methodology and its accompanying Humean-Newtonian causal model of linearity. In contrast, the Chinese philosophical framework is one bounded not simply by Thing-ontology but also by Process-ontology, with its Who list methodology and its accompanying causal model of multi-factorial, non-linear causality. The talk will further show that the CCM concept of Preventive Medicine is best explored in conjunction with its account of Predictive Medicine as it stands to reason to claim that an ability to prevent something from occurring presupposes an ability to foresee and to predict its occurrence. Examples will be cited from the history of CCM ranging from pre-natal to post-natal contexts, to environmental contexts including the nutritional strategy as a crucial measure of Preventive Medicine. It emphasises that for CCM, Preventive Medicine is key and it showers greatest praise on physicians who excel(ed) in it. This talk, therefore, brings out the commonalities as well as the differences between two different medical perspectives and to show that paradoxically what has a very ancient ring about it (CCM) is at once also very “advanced” and “up-to-date” while what is very “up-to-date” and forward-looking brings forth resonance of something ancient.
Share this page on your timeline