Interdisciplinary and Scientific Approach to Chinese Medicine-Study on Objectification of Blood Stagnation (Oketsu), a Classical Concept in Chinese Medicine

In Chinese medicine, 'treatment of predisposition to disease” has been considered as the sole and supreme treatment. 'Treatment of predisposition to disease' means a treatment to prevent disease, in other words, preservation and recovery of health (primary prevention). 'Predisposition to disease' from the viewpoint of Western medicine is an unorganized disease condition (pre-clinical stage), which mainly consists of obscure functional symptoms (the so-called general malaise). Chinese medicine regards such a condition as blood stagnation (Oketsu). Thus, the authors attempted objectification of blood stagnation through an interdisciplinary and scientific approach and succeeded in translating blood stagnation into a scientific concept at the interface between Chinese and Western medicine.