Here is an excerpt from an article in The Lantern Dan and Chip wrote about the Chinese concept of tong and its relation to East Asian medicine.

Now published 2018 Feb. Available for $5AU

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[O]penness, denotes in this context our translation of tong 通. For us, tong is the fundamental thing that acupuncture accomplishes. As we will demonstrate in this essay, we understand tong as far more than a synonym for moving the qi. We are not in any way proposing an orientation to practice based on drainage as opposed to tonification. Tong is a principle that lies even deeper than the elementary ideas of excess and deficiency, tonification and drainage. If the system is tong, a great many of the issues regarding when and where to tonify and drain become moot. This is because once the body is tong it can fully utilize its inherent capacity for self regulation.

To us, tong is a synonym for one aspect the body’s own self-healing abilities, that is for health. As A.T. Still, the founder of osteopathy put it, “To find health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease.” A tong body knows better than any physician how best to rid itself of a surplus or pathogenic qi, and to replenish regions of insufficiency. A crucial aspect of our job as physicians is simply to help the human system express its inherent tong-ness. This article explores the concept of tong and how it can be applied to the practice of medicine.