The Constitution Medicine of Lee Jema



According to Lee Jema, each person is born with one of the four constitutions. The criteria for classifying constitutions did not depend on facial traits, skin color or bodily form, but on the differences from birth in the functioning of the organs. This was an amazing opinion, because he asserted it in a time when there weren't any modern diagnostic devices such as X-ray machines and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which could directly measure the size and function of the organs. It isn't possible to know exactly how he based his assertion that each person is born with different organ structures.

He was a doctor of Oriental medicine who studied Chinese medicine, so undoubtedly he was influenced by many classical books of Chinese medicine such as Huangdi Neijing and Sahnghanlun, and others. But classifying human constitutions by the differences in the natural born organ structures is his unique contribution, not found in any of the Chinese classical literature. One could guess that he was able through clairvoyance to uncover the secrets of organ structures hidden in human bodies, or that he discovered through clinical research that organs tend to function differently in different people. Maybe based on such research he came up with his constitution theory.

The theoretical background of his unique assertion is indeed the topic of study for later scientists, and there are many dissertations published in this field. However, the most important question is, does his assertion that people have from birth different organ structures stand up to objective fact?  This is the core question for anyone who tries to study the unique Korean constitution medicine.

In the beginning, I, too, had many doubts, and gave it much thought.  I spent much time striving to find an unequivocal answer to this question, is this core theory of constitution medicine, that people are born with different organ structures, just a device to come up with a prescription, or is it really supported by objective fact?  
An intellectual can't easily accept or study a new theory without this kind of serious thought.  I eventually came to accept this constitution theory of Lee Jema as truth, studying the theory and experiencing myself clinical healing in accordance with it, in spite of the fact that it is not yet perfectly proven by modern scientific methods. This is the conviction that comes from my own clinical experience.

How closely a theory conforms to objective fact depends on the degree to which the expected result comes from treatment done according to the theory. Even if a theory in itself is perfectly elegant, it should be discarded if it doesn't lead to the expected result in the real world. Any branch of science, especially medicine, should be judged not by the elegance of its theory, but by the results of its healing in the real world.

I have no doubt that this constitution medicine will soon be proven by modern scientific methods.  It was only about one hundred years ago that it became known that people are born with different types of blood. The discovery of blood types lead to miraculous changes in medical history.
I believe that if the fact that people are born with different constitutions is proven by scientific methods, and if the day comes when constitutions, like blood types, can be classified by simple and objective means, the world medical history will once again go through revolutionary changes.

I am hoping that the recent high-profile research into gene mapping will provide a key to scientifically unlock the mystery of constitution medicine.  According to research by constitution medical doctors, constitutions are by birth and hereditary.  If there is a clear relationship between genes and the hereditary constitutions, the study of genes can lead to establishing the existence of constitutions.

An American institute authoritative in gene research found that a person's obesity is not necessarily related to how much one eats, that there clearly is a specific constitution of those who tend to get fat no matter how little they eat.  The same penicillin efficiently kills bacteria in one person, but in another causes fatal side effects.  It seems evident, that gene research will prove that there exists also a constitution that is hypersensitive to penicillin. Up till now, medicines are prescribed uniformly without considering the genetically specific character or the race or individual, but in the future there will be medicine adjusted to the individual person.

Thanks to the completion of the gene project, today's Western medicine, which equally applies the same medicine to everyone with the same symptoms, will soon change its medical paradigm to treatment which puts importance on the genetically specific character of the individual. Western medicine, which treats only the ill body part as the object of treatment, will become much more attentive of the relationship between the ill part and the whole body. This is the treatment paradigm of Oriental medicine, especially Korean constitution medicine.