The organization and practice of East Asian medicine in Japan: Continuity and change

Abstract

Traditional East Asian Medicine is undergoing a popular revival in modern Japan and is analysed in this paper in order to demonstrate its structure and organization in historical times and continuities, discontinuities and revivalism of aspects of traditional theory and practice in contemporary times. The reasons for a popular revival and the process of re-legitimation are then discussed. Both historically and in contemporary times, the training and social organization within which traditional Japanese practitioners work encourages reductionism, factionalism, competition and innovation. A variety of theoretical models and medical practice is applied within this system, so that despite a shared classical heritage, it is in reality pluralistic.

The popular revival is being reinforced by the mass media, changes in legal sanctions and government-sponsored research. But official responses tend to encourage the promotion of control of traditional medicine by applying the standards of science to it and by incorporating it into the organization devised for the practice of cosmopolitan medicine. It is demonstrated that institutional legitimation can lead to the sacrifice of those special features of traditional medicine, including pluralism, which are deemed most valuable by patients.