Early Chinese Medical Literature

The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts

These Chinese medical manuscripts representing a broad range of lost medical literature from ancient times have been carefully translated by a sinoantropologist. Two of the texts describe the paths of eleven mai (channels or vessels) inside the body. One is a brief discussion of channel theory in three parts - pathogenic conditions of qi and cauterization; lancing technique; and channel diagnosis performed at the ankle. A forth concerns fatal signs associated with the yin and yang vessels and five body constituents: Flesh, bone, essence, blood, and muscle.

a fifth is a manual of receipes to treat ailments, arranged by 52 ailment categories. Many of the receipes detailexorcistic incarnations and rituals. A sixth text concerns dietetics and breath cultivation, including the technique of quegu (eliminating grain or foodstuffs) by consuming the herb shiwei (pyrrosia) and by performing breathing exercises; and techniques of daoyin. Two other texts are recipe manuals for health practices to extend life through sexual cultivation exercise.

The purpose of this text is to present the way or dao of Chinese medicine so that its basic preminse, including its physio-logical mechanisms, can be viewed in Western terms. The confusion introduced by the energy-meridian theory and reinvent acupuncture so it could be explained simply in Western terms. The ancient art of Chinese medicine is as relevant today as it was over two thousand years a... Read More...

The Huainanzi has in recent years been recognized by scholars as one of the seminal works of Chinese thought at the beginning of the imperial ear, a summary of the full flowering of early Taoist philosophy. This book presents a study of three key chapters of the Huainanzi, "The Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven,", "The Treatise on Topography," and "The Treatise on the Seasonal Rules," which collec... Read More...

"The essential reference for ancient Chinese medicine and a valuable to research on early Chinese civilization." Donald Harper, University of Chicago The Huang Di nei jing su wen, known familiarly as the Su wen, is a seminal text of ancient Chinese medicine, yet until now there has been no comprehensive, detailed analysis of its development and contents. Paul U. Unschuld traces the history of... Read More...

Sixty Texts with Vocabulary and Translation, a Guide to Research Aids and a General Glossary This work offers a selection of sixty texts with vocabulary and translation, compiled and translated from 33 classics including the Huang Di Nei Jing, Yi Xue, Nan Jing, Shi Ji, San Yin Lun, Shang Han Lun, Ben Cao Gan Mu, and Pi Wei Lun. The texts are presented in ten lessons. Each lesson provides informati... Read More...

This is the first book to discuss this fascinating material in a western language in the century since the Dunhuang library was discovered. The primary sources for this text come from a collection of medieval manuscripts discovered in 1900 in a walled-up room in the Buddhist cave-shrines of Dunhuang, Gansu Province, west China. Dunhuang was formerly an important Silk Road town, and formed the bas... Read More...