Julian Scott M.A. Ph. D.

Paediatrics has formed a specialised subject in Chinese Medicine since the Song dynasty (960-1279). Chinese doctors recognised the differences between children and adults in diagnosis and treatment, and skillfully adapted their methods to the treatment of children. Their clinical experience is reported in many textbooks.After 1949, the public health situation in China was horrific and China's new government had to deal with staggering social and economic problems. In particular, as always happens in times of crisis, children's health suffered immensely. The perinatal mortality rate was an astounding two to three hundred per thousand, infanticide and child-selling were widespread, and there was an enormous legacy of infectious and parasitic diseases (smallpox, measles, diptheria, scarlet fever, cholera, schistosomiasis etc.). China's new government dealt with these problems resolutely and their achievements in the field of public health and children's welfare are too well known to be repeated here. Traditional Chinese medicine played an important role in the treatment and prevention of children's diseases, and many important textbooks on paediatrics were published after 1949, drawing on the experience of the old doctors and integrating it with present conditions.Julian Scott has done an immensely valuable service for all of us who practise acupuncture in the West. Drawing from many old and modern paediatric textbooks from the Ming dynasty to the present day, Julian Scott has produced an extremely useful and clear textbook for the diagnosis and treatment of children. The experience of Chinese doctors, as gleaned from the various textbooks, is skillfully adapted to our present-day conditions in the West, and to the needs of Western children. Furthermore, Julian's personal clinical experience adds to this traditional knowledge.Julian Scott's book on paediatrics in Chinese Medicine is a valuable contribution to the diffusion of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the West, and an important step in the process of adapting Chinese Medicine to Western conditions, which is ultimately the crucial condition for its survival and continued growth.Giovanni Maciocia… (lisätietoja)