The rise and prospects of medical aesthetics

Since the 1980s, Chinese scholars have been trying to expound and synthethise elementary aesthetical ideas which occur in medicine, in order to treat this area of study as a defined branch of medicine-'medical aesthetics'. It is in this context that the points discussed in this paper arise. We set forth in detail the ideas, objectives and methods adopted within the framework of medical aesthetics and its applied branch-medical cosmetology and expound the relations between them. We think the task of medical aesthetics is to study the human body in its entirety, concentrating on both internal and external beauty and put the findings into practice, whereas the task of medical cosmetology is to study and assess only the external beauty of the human body and to take action on that basis. Medical cosmetology is the enforcement of medical aesthetics, practised in order to give positive results connected with physical beauty, and is therefore easily understood by the layman. It is known that the development of medical cosmetology represents an important breakthrough in the development of medical aesthetics. We think that beauty should not be measured mechanically, always following the same pattern, but that it should be considered individually with everyone's own particular characteristics. The quality of physical attractiveness should be assessed jointly by the doctor and his patient or client, not solely by either of these individuals nor even by a group of doctors. The necessity of defining and developing both medical aesthetics and medical cosmetology arises largely as a result of the increasing numbers of people who pursue beauty and health and is in accordance with the trend for consolidating different aspects of modern science. A main objective of medical advance is to improve the quality of health and beauty; to enhance the quality of life and encourage human beings toward achieving perfection in both health and beauty. We predict that in the future medical aesthetics and medical cosmetology will be amongst those subjects considered to be of major importance in the medical field. We have at last reached a stage where we can define the intentions and applied measures of medical aesthetics and medical cosmetology which differ from those of clinical medicine, preventive medicine, or recuperative medicine.