Preface
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Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which is the quintessence of the Chinese culture heritage, has
a long history of 5000 years as that of the Chinese nation and has made an everlasting contribution to
the Chinese nation¡¯s survival and producing offspring and prosperity. Chinese government encourages
and supports investigation of scientific principles underlining the diagnostic and therapeutic of TCM,
which will promote the internationalization and standardization of TCM. Guangdong Province is the
unique region in China, where more than 50% patients will reach TCM doctors first whenever they have
ailments. TCM research is the central focus of the institute and our goal is to attract students from various
background to conduct TCM related research.
We decide to design a course¡ªIntroduction to Tradition Chinese Medicine, to give an overview
about TCM for students without any TCM or even biology background. We cannot find an appropriate
textbook for this class since instructors seldom teach TCM in English. Thus, we compile this manuscript
with several professors and students together with the goal of generating a textbook for future
students enrolled into this class. With the limited time and knowledge, this book definitely needs many
improvements in the future. We will continuously update and rearrange the material and introduce new
concepts and technologies, such Virtual Reality and artificial intelligence in the next edition.
We would like to open the door and discuss with anyone who are also interested in TCM education.
We appreciate if you can share your comments with us.
Best wishes
Qin Peiwu
Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
pwqin@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn