동서양 접촉 이후의 근대 약초학에 보이는 실용성- 근대 서방과 우리나라『동의보감』의 약효에 대한 이해의 비교를 중심으로 -

Abstract

The hippocratic medicine which has influenced the western world has common elements with the Eastern medicinal tradition in the points of natural therapy and of the body in totality and fludity. The alleged difference of the two medicinal traditions refers to just a one-sided view. In fact, various trends coexist in each of them. For example, in the East, there are various and discursive knowledges of empirical clinics related to medical botany on the one hand, and the abstract philosophic theory of Dark-Brightness and Five elements on the other hand. Then, in the West there are various empirical knowledges of medical botany, too, and they coexist with extremely analytical, experimental medicine such as macro-anatomy and micro anatomy(cellular pathology). A great gap could be found between the extremely analytical, experimental medicine of the West and the philosophic theory of Dark-Brightness and Five elements of the East. The two worlds, however, have common elements, too, having diverse empirical knowledges of botanical therapy. The West and the East show common understanding in the detailed empirical effects of some medical botany. At the same time, however, there are some distinctions, too. For example, in the West, as the diet has been consisted much more of meat than in the East, the botanical therapy often refers to facilitating intestinal functions and blood circulations. In the East, however, the traditional diet comes in the most part from vegetables and the therapy is often concerned with complementing energy[or spirit](氣), or modulating uneven energy. In the contemporary world, the body of physiology and the social environment have gradually been changed owing to the increasement of world commerce as well as industrialization. The westernized diet and the increasement of adult diseases in the Eastern countries force the traditional eastern medicine to approach to the Western knowledge of medical botany. The change of viewpoints in the traditional Eastern medical botany assumes practical utilities, as it is not simply a result of the introduction of Western knowledge, but goes with the transition of life environment itself.