The Quest for Personalised Health - University of Westminster

The Quest for Personalised Health - University of Westminster

The Quest for Personalised Health
Date: 10 June 2011 9.00am - 11 June 2011 5.30pm
Location: 115 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6HX

Jointly organised with Jan van der Greef (University of Leiden) & Bridie Andrews Minehan (Bentley University)

“These days doctors when providing therapy select a couple of medicines, write down a regimen for taking them, hand it over, and that is that. Before the ancients treated patients, they became familiar with the cycles of yin and yang and of time, and with the exhalations of qi from mountain, forest, river, and marsh. They discerned the patient’s age, body weight, social status, style of life, disposition, likes, feelings, and vigor. In accord with what was appropriate to these characteristics, and avoiding what was not, they chose among drugs, moxa, acupuncture, lancing with the stone needle, decoctions, and extracts. They straightened out old habits and manipulated patterns of emotions. Feeling their way, missing no opportunity and constantly adapting, in their reasoning there was not a hair-breadth’s gap. They would go on to regulate the patient’s dress, rationalize his diet, change his living habits, and follow the transformations of his emotions, sometimes treating him according to environmental factors, sometimes according to individual factors.” Shen Kuo 沈括 (12th century)