- 中医历史与哲学(英文版)
- 图娅 方廷钰
- 914字
- 2021-12-10 18:21:00
Section 6 The Territory and Humanistic Characteristics of the Birth of Traditional Chinese Medicine
People always live and labor in a specific environment. The interaction between humans and the environment cannot but influence their perspectives on the world.
Traditional Chinese medicine has distinct cultural characteristics. In the early stage of its birth there must have been many factors that gave rise to its distinct characteristics.
The Territory Characteristics of the Birth of Traditional Chinese Medicine
The natural environment always provides both the necessary and the constraining conditions for the survival of mankind. Especially at the early stage of human development, people relied on nature and were restricted by nature in production and life. Inevitably, the indelible mark of the natural environment was set on early civilization.
China is situated in East Asia on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. Mountains in the west region and south-west Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are the natural defense. The east and south-east regions are surrounded by the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East and South China Seas. The Mongolian Plateau is magnificently situated in the north. This is why our ancient ancestors found it was difficult to communicate with the outside world. As a result the Chinese ancient civilization preserved its own unique features.
China is rich in river water sources, and it has both subtropical climates and plains geography, which allowed ancient Chinese people to develop agriculture as its primary economic activity. All of these factors had a profound influence on its scientific and technological culture, including traditional Chinese medicine.
Traditional Chinese medicine takes the theory of yin and yang, and the five phases as its foundation, and uses them for their theoretical and technological sophistication. Due to its practical orientation and the underlying system of thought based on wholism, they naturally derived many key notions from on-serving and interacting with the natural world.
Traditional Chinese medicine advocates conforming to nature, which corresponds to the heaven and earth, and the sun and moon. Acupuncture used to regulate the flow of qi and blood in the channels, small splints adopted for treating fractures, and medicinal substances used externally to treat wounds are all examples of how people create different material civilization, or spiritual civilization, under different natural conditions.
The Humanities and the Birth of Traditional Chinese Medicine
The origins of traditional Chinese medicine were not only influenced by geography, but also by human factors.
Archeological findings testify that in the early period of the Neolithic Age the Chinese people began to take agriculture as their principal economy. Hereafter, with its continuous improvement, agriculture spread in the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Pearl River Basins. At the same time, the worldview of the Chinese people took shape with its unique features.
Traditional Chinese medicine embodies so many concepts, such as round heaven and square earth, following the tide of nature, and correspondence between humans and the universe. These can be considered as the stamp of the agricultural civilization on medicine. In traditional Chinese medicine, the kidney and spleen are taken as the innate endowment and acquired endowment, respectively, which reflects the fact that the agricultural culture relies on water and earth.
In traditional Chinese medicine, human relations are used as a metaphor for the relations of the zang-fu organs, and which is why the roles of chief, deputy, assistant and envoy are used to describe formula composition.
At the embryo stage, traditional Chinese medicine had its own distinct features. To have an accurate comprehension we have to search for the aspects which have been discarded in the remote past.
Endnotes:
[1] 冥昭懵闇,谁能极之?
[2] 圣人无父,感天而生
[3] 神农尝百草,始有医药
[4] 砭,以石刺病也
[5] 用其新,弃其陈,腠理遂通,精气日新,邪气尽去,及其天年
[6] 孟春行秋令,则民大疫,季春行夏令,则民多疾疫,仲夏行秋令,则民殃于疫
[7] 土薄水浅,其恶易觏
[8] 凡和,春多酸,夏多苦,秋多辛,冬多咸,调以滑甘
[9] 掌养万民之疾病;以五味、五谷、五药养其病,以五气、五声、五色视其死生。两之以九窍之变,参之以九脏之动。
[10] 病入膏肓
[11] 防患于未然
[12] 恬淡虚无,真气从之;精神内守,病安从来!
[13]“河罗之鱼,食之已痈”,“有鸟焉,名曰青耕,可以御疫”
[14] 医不三世不服其药
[15] 凡民之有疾病者,分而治之,死终,则各书其所以,而入于医师。
[16]“夏道尊命”、“殷人尊神,周人尊礼法”
[17] 天下万物生于有,有生于无