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[[File:Ayurvedic man.jpg|thumb|upright|Human anatomy according to Ayurveda. Nepal, ca. 1800.]]
Let’s begin with Ayurveda, or literally the ``knowledge “knowledge of longevity"longevity”. The oldest medical compendia from which Ayurveda took its root, are attributed to Sushruta (ca. 6th century BCE) and Charaka (between 100 BCE and 200 CE), which makes Ayurveda about as old as Greek humoral medicine. If you look at the similarities between the two (as we will in a moment), it’s hard to think that they’ve developed completely independently. But who copied from whom? That’s hard to tell.
As the starting point we’re going to take, again, the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and aether. However, unlike in Greek thought, where aether only existed in celestial bodies and was thus of little importance to medicine, all five elements are relevant to Ayurveda. Besides, the Ayurvedic counterpart of aether is not so much a volatile substance as it’s just vacuum, an empty space with the potential to be filled with something.
When describing the qualities of the Greek elements, we used two axes: ''hot'' vs. ''cold'' and ''dry'' vs. ''moist''. Ayurveda uses ten such axes, but we’ll try to simplify it by boiling them down to only three: the two mentioned above plus ''light'' vs. ''heavy''. The next difference is that, in humoral medicine, each of the humours was mapped to one of the four terrestrial elements; in Ayurveda, on the other hand, the principal vital forces known as ''doshas'', which roughly correspond to the humours, are associated with pairs of elements. The good news is that there are only three ''doshas'', as not every possible pair of elements has its own ''dosha''.
[[File:Ajurweda EN.png|thumb|left|upright|Elements, ''doshas'' and tastes. It's It’s actually more complicated than that, but I'd I’d have to make this infographic at least in 3D to avoid all of the excessive simplification.]]
Water bounded by earth produces a ''dosha'' called ''kapha'' (pronounced: {{pron|kap·hah|link=no}}). ''Kapha'' is heavy, cold and moist; in the human body, it’s responsible for holding everything together and, when in excess, it manifests itself in the form of phlegm. Fire bound by water is ''pitta'', which is hot, light and… not dry. Wait, what? Well, it’s not dry, because it contains water, but it isn’t moist either, because the moisture is evaporated by the fire. So what do you call something that’s neither dry nor moist? Consider food: if it’s too dry, then what you do is baste it with some oil, butter or gravy, right? And this is what ''pitta'' is like – fatty, oily, unctuous. In your organism, it keeps digestion running and the associated ``humour" “humour” is bile. And then there’s the third ''dosha'', called ''vata'', which is a combination of air and void. It’s dry, light and cold. In your body, it’s responsible for breathing and motion, and its excess shows as… not a fluid this time, but something rather gaseous. What you get by combining air and void is wind, and this is exactly what builds up in your colon when you’ve got too much ''vata''.
Just like in humoral theory, the domination of any one ''dosha'' in your organism determines your physique and your temperament. A ''vata''-type person is usually thin and bony, dark-skinned with thin, dry hair, an elongated and wrinkled face, and is quick-tempered, impatient and wavering. If you’re a ''kapha''-type person, then you might be heavily built with pale skin, thick, oily hair and a round, soft face, slow, but persistent. And you can tell someone is a ''pitta''-type person by their muscular figure, ruddy complexion, soft hair with a tendency for early greyness and baldness, a face with sharp contours, as well as their high impulsiveness and motivation. But that’s not all, for there are also people whose bodies are dominated by not one, but two ''doshas'' (''vata-pitta, vata-kapha'' and ''pitta-kapha'' types), as well as those who have all three ''doshas'' in balance (the ''vata-pitta-kapha'' type). This way, there are only three ''doshas'', but as many as seven different temperaments.
Understanding what traditional Chinese medicine is all about was made somewhat easier courtesy of Dr. Guta Kulczycka, who explained some of the key concepts to me and recommended the relevant literature.
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Chiny - klarowanie masła.jpg}}|thumb|upright|Clarification of butter in a ca. 1550 illustration to the ''Food Herbal'']]
The oldest known Chinese medical texts are the ''Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor'' and the ''Treatise on Cold-Damage Diseases'', usually dated to the period of the Han dynasty, that is, the 3rd century BCE. This would make TCM a little younger than the humoral and Ayurvedic theories, although it’s possible that it was based on much earlier, but now lost, works. You can tell by the titles alone that TCM probably loses much in translation – if it’s translatable at all.
The key concept of TCM is ''qi'' (pronounced: {{pron|chee|link=no}}; literally: ``air"“air”), a vital substance permeating the entire universe. It comes in various densities or phases (depending on how you want to picture it), from matter to energy to spirit. All processes in the universe may be understood as thickening or rarefying of ''qi''. Chinese philosophy talks of ''yin'' whenever ''qi'' thickens and ''yang'' whenever it becomes rarefied. ''Yin'' and ''yang'' are a pair of cosmic opposites – with ''yin'' being colder, moister and slower, while ''yang'' is hotter, drier and quicker – the dark and light sides of the force. Except that, in ''Star Wars'', the two sides of the force are locked in a constant struggle, while ''yin'' and ''yang'' complement each other in a creative, rather than destructive, way.
From the medical point of view, ''yin'' and ''yang'' influence the gathering and flow of ''qi'' in the organism. ''Qi'' is transported around the body along special energy channels, or ``meridians"“meridians”, which I won’t be talking about here (let me just note that it’s along these channels that needles are inserted in acupuncture). Disease, obviously, comes from the lack of balance between ''yin'' and ''yang'' in your body, and the goal of medicine is to keep or restore that balance. The imbalance may result from too much ''yin'', too little ''yang'', too much ''yang'' or (guess what?) too little ''yin''.
Sounds familiar? Okay, but what about elements? Are there any elements in this system or just ''qi, yin'' and ''yang''? Don’t you worry, of course there are. There’s five of them (naturally), but they’re a little different from those we already know. They are, namely: tree, fire, earth, metal and water. No air? Well, no; after all, ''qi'' already means ``air"“air”, right? But the chief difference between Chinese and Western elements is that the latter are understood as static substances or states of matter, while the former are more like successive phases of the continuous process of the transformation of ''qi''. This is why the Chinese term ''wǔxíng'' (pronounced: {{pron|woo·sheeng|link=no}}) is better translated as ``five movements" “five movements” than ``five elements"“five elements”.
[[File:Chiny - gotowanie sosu sojowego.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.6|A pot of soy sauce in an illustration from the ''Food Herbal'']]
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As you can see, despite some obvious differences, there is also much that humoral, Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medical theories have in common. People used to find connections between elements and seasons, human temperaments and stages of life, internal organs and bodily fluids, diseases, tastes and warming or cooling qualities of foods and drinks in most diverse civilisations. And in all civilisations, these ideas influenced what people ate and how they cooked it.
