The evolution of Traditional Chinese Medicine as a disciplinary concept and its essence throughout history

“Traditional Chinese Medicine” (TCM; Zhong Yi) is a concept that keeps evolving with the change of times and clinical practice. From the aspect of the category of modern science, there were not appropriate boundaries set for the literature, history and philosophy in the realm of Chinese traditional academics. Thanks to the eastward spread of Western culture and science, the category of disciplines in modern times then came into being. In order to be listed in the system of modern disciplines, traditional disciplines have always been trying to redefine themselves, and “TCM,” of course, is involved. Considering the fact that “TCM” is now an academic discipline in the field of medicine, here we reviewed not only the transition of the concept of “TCM” from a primitive and then a hierarchical medical term to a relatively full-fledged one that is, to some extent, opposite to the concept of Western Medicine or modern medicine, from a narrow medical term that is peculiar to Han Medicine to a broad one that pertains to Han Medicine along with ethnic traditional medicines in China, but also the transition of the development from merely highlighting TCM and then equally emphasizing TCM together with modern medicine to comprehensively converging TCM, modern medicine and Integrative Medicine, which contributes to the evolution from the dominance of TCM, the coexistence of TCM and modern medicine, the confluence of TCM and modern medicine, and finally to the integration of TCM and modern medicine. In addition, we introduced pioneering medical concepts, epistemology and methodology such as Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM; Da Zhong Yi), Trichotomy (San Fen Fa), Five Key Elements (Wu Yao Su) and Three-dimensional Integration (San Rong He), proposed the potential future direction of medicine, stressed the importance of taking the essence and discarding the dregs in TCM, and appreciated those who are able to perceive similarities in differences. We looked forward to reconstructing the system of TCM by the integration of the part that is unconsciously ahead of modern medicine and that has already reached consensus with modern medicine from all the traditional medicines in China, which would promise a brand new system of medicine harmoniously integrating traditional medicine and modern medicine.