Thinking Through Lurking Pathogens: A Pragmatic Approach to Clinical

Female

Thinking Through Lurking Pathogens: A Pragmatic Approach to Clinical

Application.

By Charles Chace, Lic. Ac.

One of the most evocative concepts in the modern clinical practice of Chinese medicine is that of

lurking pathogens (伏邪fú xié).[1] Today Chinese medical practitioners most often evoke the notion of a

lurking pathogen as a means of understanding the course of intractable modern diseases characterized by

pathogens, often viruses, which lay dormant prior to their active such as Epstein-Barr, Hepatitis C, and

AIDS. This approach, while valid, imposes some inherent limitations on our application of the Chinese

medical idea of lurking pathogens.[2] In this paper I will discuss lurking pathogens as treatment

methodology as opposed to pathogens with a specific etiology characterized by dormancy. I will then

present a case history illustrating this perspective, and finally I will examine whether this strategy

yielded the most skillful and expeditious treatment outcome.

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