“Oketsu” is an important concept in the diagnosis and therapy of Oriental Medicine. In this paper, we analysed “Oketsu” from the standpoint of Chinese Medical Prescriptions by using pattern analysis techniques.
Intra-relation of 9 Chinese Prescription needed over 2 dimensions using M-D-SCAL. This indicates that if only 1 dimension is used, some information on patients may be missed. Use of only one dimension for “Oketsu” may not be suitable.
Nature and taste of herb are plotted on the configuration of herbs obtained by quantificalion of the third kind. And, using nature of herbs, almost same configuration was obtained as that using herbs individualy. This indicates, taste and nature were used in the compounding of herbs into Chinese Medical Prescriptions.

This lecture was given on the occasion of the 1995th Award for Academic Encouragement of the Japan Society of Oriental Medicine (JSOM). It started by the author's experience and information he gained from various settings in different countries during his service as a Medical Officer for Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO). During that time, he was often caught in the controversy of promotion or assessment of traditional medicine. But even in China, where the government have had a strong policy in promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), methods of clinical epidemiology has been introduced in TCM since the early 1990s. From the viewpoint of a clinical pharmacologist, the author described in this lecture, the current status of traditional medicine focusing on East Asia and proposed future plans. He discussed the relation between clinical pharmacology and clinical epidemiology and introduced basic concepts in these areas such as randomized controlled trial (RCT), placebo, bias and their prevention methods. He proposed the use of Evidence-based Oriental Medicine (EBOM) showing the strength of evidence according to study design including comparisons done before and after the study and discussed the cultural acceptability and practicability of clinical trials of oriental medicine as well as the use of RCT and the difference in the pattern of accumulation of information between classic Oriental medicine in olden times and modern Oriental medicine in the industrialized era. He stressed the difference in the meaning of efficacy on group and on individual using the concept of Number Needed to Treat (NNT) and the importance of using soft data as endpoints in evaluating oriental medicine. The applicability of evidence to the clinical setting was discussed and in the absence of strong evidence, the concept of Evidence-Biased Medicine (EBM) is recommended. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) of Japan initiated a review of the reevaluation of Kampo drugs in 1989 in line with current world trends in the evaluation of herbal medicine conducted by WHO and other organizations. In this review, disclosure of information from government sectors in areas such as clinical trials of Kampo medicine and adverse event (AE)/adverse drug reaction (ADR) was stressed. Methods of single case study (N of 1 trial) was introduced and future plans and actions by the JSOM on the evaluation of Kampoo drug were proposed.

After the one-and-a-half years of combined efforts that started in June 2002, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among three society related in acupuncture in Japan and the Republic of Korea-Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (JSAM), the Korean Acupuncture and Moxibustion Society (KAMS), the Korean Oriental Medical Society (KOMS) -was finally signed on 14 February 2004 at the Westin Chosun Hotel, Seoul, Republic of Korea. This article presents a history of the development of the MOU and the proceedings at the celebration ceremony, as well as current and future activities on the basis of the MOU.

We investigated the correlation between search terms in electronic databases and descriptors of Kampo medicine in English articles to consider what may the best expressions to search for Kampo medicine in English literature. First, we selected Kampo articles from CENTRAL of the Cochrane Library that were originally identified in Pubmed. “Medicine, Kampo” has been used as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) in PubMed since 2000. However, among the 53 Kampo articles published there since 2000, only 13 have been indexed with the MeSH descriptor “Medicine, Kampo”. Second, we searched for the keywords “Kampo” and “Japanese (medicine)” in the literature, and investigated the correlation between these terms and the same “Medicine, Kampo” descriptor. As a result, a literature search with “Medicine, Kampo” was highly correlated with the concurrent use of “Kampo” and “Japanese” in the articles. Hence, we advocate the use of terms such as “Kampo medicine (traditional Japanese medicine)” to include both the words “Kampo” and “Japanese” in future English literatures on Kampo medicine.

WFAS Executive Committee meeting was held on 6 November 2008 in Beijing, China. Firstly, WFAS secretary reported what they have achieved since last meeting in 2007. Then some important issues such as revision of membership certificate and revision of WFAS constitution were proposed and discussed. The 7th WFAS World Congress of Acupuncture had been decided to be held in Korea in 2009, but it was cancelled because of the recent economic crisis. The alternative venue for the next congress was not decided but France and/or Germany could be the candidate. In addition, Dr. Tsutani made a suggestion about the WFAS ethic codes on the WFAS website and it was approved.