Advance Access Publication 11 April 2007 eCAM 2007;4(3)293–298 doi:10.1093/ecam/nem005 Lecture Series Ben Kavoussi Chinese Medicine: A Cognitive and Epistemological Review* Medicus Research LLC, Northridge, CA and Southern California University of Health Sciences, Whittier, CA, USA In spite of the common belief that Chinese natural philosophy and medicine have a unique frame of reference completely foreign to the West, this article argues that they in fact have significant cognitive and epistemic similarities with certain esoteric health beliefs of pre-Christian Europe. From the standpoint of Cognitive Science, Chinese Medicine appears as a proto-scientific system of health observances and practices based on a symptomological classification of disease using two elementary dynamical-processes pattern categorization schemas: a hierarchical and combinatorial inhibiting–activating model (Yin-Yang), and a non-hierarchical and associative five-parameter semantic network (5-Elements/Agents). The concept-map of the five-parameter model amounts to a pentagram, a commonly found geomantic and spell casting sigil in a number of pre-Christian health and safety beliefs in Europe, to include the Pythagorean cult of Hygieia, and the Old Religion of Northern Europe. This non-hierarchical pattern-recognition archetype/ prototype was hypothetically added to the pre-existing hierarchical one to form a hybrid nosology that can accommodate for a change in disease perceptions. The selection of five parameters rather than another number might be due to a numerological association between the integer five, the golden ratio, the geometry of the pentagram and the belief in health and wholeness arising from cosmic or divine harmony. In any case, this body of purely empirical knowledge is nowadays widely flourishing in the US and in Europe as an alternative to Western Medicine and with the claim of being a unique, independent and comprehensive medical system, when in reality it is structurally—and perhaps historically—related to the health and safety beliefs of pre-Christian Europe; and without the prospect for an epistemological rupture, it will remain built upon rudimentary cognitive modalities, ancient metaphysics, and a symptomological view of disease. Keywords: 5-elements theory – empirical medicine – proto-science – sacred geometry – semantic networks – traditional chinese medicine ‘The world is built upon the power of numbers.’ Pythagoras Introduction A certain type of empirical medicine called ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine’ or ‘Oriental Medicine’ is widely flourishing in the US and in Europe with the claim that For reprints and all correspondence: Ben Kavoussi, 2033 Euclid Street, #7, Santa Monica, CA 90405, USA; E-mail: kavoussi@ucla.edu *This article is the first in a series of comparative essays on Chinese Medicine from the epistemological, theoretical and practical standpoints. it presents a frame of reference ‘completely foreign to the West’ (Kaptchuk) (1). And for its exotic terminology, its peculiar diagnosis and its unconventional treatment modalities, Chinese Medicine is being perceived as such by the Western health-consumer. A cognitive-epistemic review, however, does not support this claim of origi- nality and points to remarkable infrastructural simila- rities between Chinese Medicine and the once-prevalent pagan (Latin, Paganus, ‘from the country’) beliefs of well-being and safety in pre-Christian Europe. This resemblance has actually been the subject of a variety of comparative studies, which range from the hypothesis of ‘convergence’ (Lloyd), to that of ‘transmission,’ as argued by Paul Unschuld who, based on phonetic resemblances, maintains that the elusive Q ı´ Bo´ , the main 2007 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.