Origins of Traditional Chinese Medicine

http://www.slideshare.net/DieselDave8/origins-of-tcm

Origins of Traditional Chinese Medicine

A few years ago I had the honour and privilege to teach a ‘History of Chinese Medicine’ subject at Endeavour College of Natural Health, both at the Brisbane and Gold Coast (Australia) campuses. I subbed in for a true champion of a man called John McDonald who, for some reason, was unable to teach the subject that particular semester. Knowing I was no chance of replicating John’s knowledge base, I nonetheless hit the history books HARD!!!!

I do have a reasonable understanding of the history of a lot of different cultures and societies (as some of my previous blogs have probably demonstrated) so at least I had the confidence to accept the subject knowing I could do a good job of it. In addition I referenced absolutely everything I found in books and on the internet, and cross-checked everything to look for consistency of thought. I have so much of this sitting on my computer as well as textbooks with dog tagged edges and highlighter marks all through them (I’m a librarian’s nightmare… ha ha!!).

Throughout this subject I was able to re-familiarise myself with past Chinese dynasties, as well as immerse myself in periods of Chinese history I didn’t know much (or anything) about. One of those periods was the Shang and Zhou dynasties (1600-221 BCE*). I do need to put a disclaimer in here though; I actually have a decent knowledge base in this period via the philosophical geniuses that sprouted up everywhere during this time, as well as a strong understanding of the basic history of that time, but I didn’t for the medicine.

Interestingly, whilst I was learning about the medicine in this period I noticed a variation on the way the Chinese viewed health and disease to the way it was portrayed in the first text written on Chinese medicine, the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor Classic).

So this blog post is a presentation I have done at several TCM conferences in Sydney (WFAS/AACMAC 2013) and Houston (WFAS 2014). It’s designed to introduce readers to the way the Chinese viewed health and disease pre-Yellow Emperor. If there is extra comments from me for each power point slide I will put it here and tell you from what slide number it is. For any of you that are wanting to know where I got the information, look up the last few pages on the power point presentation (slides 25-26).

So let’s get started!!

Slide 2

The actual length of each Chinese dynasty isn’t completely agreed upon. There are variations from different experts. The table I have constructed is as close as I think I am going to get.

Slide 3

Anthropomorphic = attributes human characteristics, motivation, or behaviour to inanimate objects.

Slide 5

Tian Zi = Heaven’s Son/Emperor. The best candidate for ruling China. He is the ‘best of the best’.

Tian Ming = Heaven’s Mandate. In a nutshell, the Emperor is Heaven’s Son thereby making him the best candidate for ruling China. If, however, he turns out to be a ‘bad egg’ the Chinese people must take him down in order to place a new and better Tian Zi on the throne. if he is good then the people are good. That's Tian Ming.

Shang Di = Supreme Emperor. Basically God!

Slide 7

For example, Yang and Heat and Fire and Qi and Activity and Inflammation could all be affected.

Slide 13

For example, non-living ancestors coexist and may (or may not) positively or negatively impact on the living temporarily, recurrently, or permanently.

Slides 19-20

In ancient times the Chinese believed (and I’m sure some still do) that a person’s Hun (Ethereal Soul) left the body whilst a person was asleep to wander the Heaven’s/sky. This left space for something else to come in and take its place. In order to prevent that happening the Chinese used certain substances such as moxibustion (smudging) or pepper seeds (spread around a sleeping person).

Slides 21-22

I posted an interesting topic on the 25 March 2015 on my blog. It discusses in more detail the Goddess Tyche and Fortuna.

Further, the way that Feng Xie (Wind Evils) and the External Pathogenic Factors changed, literally from one generation to another, is interesting in itself. What’s interesting about this is that the old idea of Feng Xie didn’t allow for a lot of ownership on your own health. You tried your best but in the end you could still be invaded by Feng Xie regardless. But once the Yellow Emperor was written this idea changed and Feng Xie was now associated with External Pathogenic Factors and these could be negated somewhat by good personal health and strong Qi, particularly Wei Qi.

The Yellow Emperor Classic was written during a period of stability (Han Dynasty 206BCE-220CE) and relative peace. The Han were famous for consolidation of the past – they did this via scholarly works written; roads built and merged throughout the new kingdom; a common monetary system; the Great Wall pieces linked up and fortified/strengthened. NOTE: The previous Qin dynasty was also responsible for a lot of public works.

This consolidation required stream-lining and altering of previous ideas; one example of that was a merging of philosophical schools such as Confucian, Yin Yang and Wu Xing (amongst others) into what was termed the ‘New Text Confucian School’. If you didn’t like this merging then you were called the ‘Old Text Confucian School’. The other example I wanted to mention was how the Yellow Emperor consolidated TCM. How they did this was by taking what was out in their external world and mirroring it with their internal world. They wanted consistency and reliability; they wanted to put ownership on people to take care of themselves and this required a medicine that no longer had inconsistent disease themes such as demonic invasions and Zhou Zu (Curse of the Ancestor). So they dumped them in favour of consistent and reliable disease states/causes.

Slides 23-24

These slides have some interesting ideas some of which i have discussed in previous blogs and some that will be included in future blogs. 

  

Slides 25-26

You often get a lot of useful historical information from philosophical books, especially ones that have commentary, as opposed to ones that simply translate old texts. It makes sense when you think about it, because by getting a historical bird’s eye from the philosophers time period it provides context. What I mean here, is that the reader gets a snap shot of the world at the time the philosopher came up with his/her ideas. Is it any wonder then that the Warring States Period (Chinese civil war that lasted about 250 years) produced the single largest collection of Chinese philosophers? These thinkers could see problems in their world and were trying to offer solutions to fix the complications.

Slide 27

One theory of how the dinosaurs became extinct… classic!!!

* BCE = Before Current Era.

CE = Current Era.

BCE and CE are secular abbreviations for BC and AD.

I am keen to hear your thoughts!

Love and light to you all