Chinese for medical / acupuncture publications

[dewbytcm]

Anyone,

I need to have the skills in reading medical publications and online databases relevant to acupuncture. I'm a little bit confused however on which writing system to use, eg. simplified, traditional, mandarin, etc.

I need to find out which system is widely used for medical publications and online web pages. Can someone clarify this for me?

[yersi]

That depends entirely on where the material is published. Material published in Hong Kong or Taiwan will be published in traditional characters, simplified is used in mainland China. Mandarin is a spoken dialect of Chinese.

[Scoobyqueen]

I find a lot of the terminology related to acupunture and chinese medicine seems to be using traditional characters. Obviously the scientific journals written on the mainland would probably be in simplified characters, yet the medicine seems to be predominantly in traditional characters. Has anyone made the same observation?

[trien27]

I find a lot of the terminology related to acupunture and chinese medicine seems to be using traditional characters.

That's because Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM for short, predated the Mainland's required Simplifications starting in 1956. It started with Hua Tuo from Three Kingdoms Period [三國時代: 220-280].

More information on 華佗 / 华陀 Hua Tuo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tuo

[imron]

That's because Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM for short, predated the Mainland's required Simplifications starting in 1956.

The same could be said of the majority of all Chinese literature published before that date, however there are no problems finding pre 1950's Chinese literature in simplified Chinese.