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112-520: The agency was founded in 1980 as the Patent Office of the People's Republic of China, before changing its name to State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) then to "National Intellectual Property Administration," and, in 2018, to "China National Intellectual Property Administration". SIPO established a database of patents granted for traditional Chinese medicine . As SIPO, the institution became

224-535: A "gem". As of May 2011, in order to promote TCM worldwide, China had signed TCM partnership agreements with over 70 countries. His government pushed to increase its use and the number of TCM-trained doctors and announced that students of TCM would no longer be required to pass examinations in Western medicine. Chinese scientists and researchers, however, expressed concern that TCM training and therapies would receive equal support with Western medicine. They also criticized

336-452: A choleric man, uses humoral therapy techniques on Katherina, a choleric woman, in order to tame her into the socially acceptable phlegmatic woman. Some examples include: he yells at the servants for serving mutton, a choleric food, to two people who are already choleric; he deprives Katherina of sleep; and he, Katherina and their servant Grumio endure a cold walk home, for cold temperatures were said to tame choleric temperaments. The theory of

448-540: A classificatory and mnemonic device to observe health problems and to reflect upon, store, and recover empirical knowledge," but they were also "subject to stultifying theoretical elaboration, self-deception, and dogmatism ." The doctrines of Chinese medicine are rooted in books such as the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon and the Treatise on Cold Damage , as well as in cosmological notions such as yin–yang and

560-451: A connection between these three parts of the soul and the three major organs that were recognized at the time: the brain, the heart, and the liver. This idea of connecting vital parts of the soul to vital parts of the body was derived from Aristotle's sense of explaining physical observations, and Galen utilized it to build his view of the human body. The organs (named organa ) had specific functions (called chreiai ) that contributed to

672-538: A largely 20th century invention. In the early twentieth century, Chinese cultural and political modernizers worked to eliminate traditional practices as backward and unscientific. Traditional practitioners then selected elements of philosophy and practice and organized them into what they called "Chinese medicine" (Chinese: 中医 Zhongyi ). In the 1950s, the Chinese government sought to revive traditional medicine (including legalizing previously banned practices) and sponsored

784-418: A reduction in government testing and regulation of the production of TCMs, some of which were toxic. Government censors have removed Internet posts that question TCM. In 2020 Beijing drafted a local regulation outlawing criticism of TCM. According to Caixin , the regulation was later passed with the provision outlawing criticism of TCM removed. At the beginning of Hong Kong 's opening up, Western medicine

896-529: A surplus of a humor. Apocroustics were medications intended to stop the flux of malignant humors to a diseased body part. 16th-century Swiss physician Paracelsus further developed the idea that beneficial medical substances could be found in herbs, minerals and various alchemical combinations thereof. These beliefs were the foundation of mainstream Western medicine well into the 17th century. Specific minerals or herbs were used to treat ailments simple to complex, from an uncomplicated upper respiratory infection to

1008-504: A symbol of the Cultural Revolution, for the introduction of modern medicine into villages where traditional Chinese medicine services were used. The State Intellectual Property Office (now known as CNIPA ) established a database of patents granted for traditional Chinese medicine. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping strongly supported TCM, calling it

1120-411: A symptom brought on by a disease. Empedocles 's theory suggested that there are four elements : earth, fire, water, and air, with the earth producing the natural systems. Since this theory was influential for centuries, later scholars paired qualities associated with each humor as described by Hippocrates/Galen with seasons and "basic elements" as described by Empedocles . The following table shows

1232-518: A tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine , acupuncture, massage ( tui na ), exercise ( qigong ), and dietary therapy. It is primarily used as a complementary alternative medicine approach. TCM is widely used in China and it is also used in the West. Its philosophy is based on Yinyangism (i.e., the combination of Five Phases theory with Yin–Yang theory), which

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1344-574: Is a layer of red blood cells (the "blood"); above this is a whitish layer of white blood cells (the "phlegm"); the top layer is clear yellow serum (the "yellow bile"). Many Greek texts were written during the golden age of the theory of the four humors in Greek medicine after Galen. One of those texts was an anonymous treatise called On the Constitution of the Universe and of Man , published in

1456-468: Is also called "Eighty-One Nan". The book is based on basic theory and has also analyzed some disease certificates. Questions one to twenty-two is about pulse study, questions twenty-three to twenty-nine is about meridian study, questions thirty to forty-seven is related to urgent illnesses, questions forty-eight to sixty-one is related to serious diseases, questions sixty-two to sixty-eight is related to acupuncture points, and questions sixty-nine to eighty-one

1568-541: Is also true the other way around, a point easily overlooked." TJ Hinrichs observes that people in modern Western societies divide healing practices into biomedicine for the body, psychology for the mind, and religion for the spirit, but these distinctions are inadequate to describe medical concepts among Chinese historically and to a considerable degree today. The medical anthropologist Charles Leslie writes that Chinese, Greco-Arabic, and Indian traditional medicines were all grounded in systems of correspondence that aligned

1680-550: Is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific , with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or logical mechanism of action . Medicine in traditional China encompassed a range of sometimes competing health and healing practices, folk beliefs , literati theory and Confucian philosophy , herbal remedies , food , diet, exercise, medical specializations, and schools of thought. TCM as it exists today has been described as

1792-469: Is based on Galenic and Avicennian medicine in its emphasis on the four humors as a fundamental part of the methodologic paradigm. The humoralist system of medicine was highly individualistic, for all patients were said to have their own unique humoral composition. From Hippocrates onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians , and dominated the view of the human body among European physicians until at least 1543 when it

1904-689: Is called "Traditional Chinese Medicine" and practiced today in China and the West is not thousands of years old, but recently constructed using selected traditional terms, some of which have been taken out of context, some badly misunderstood. He has criticized Chinese and Western popular books for selective use of evidence , choosing only those works or parts of historical works that seem to lead to modern medicine, ignoring those elements that do not now seem to be effective. Critics say that TCM theory and practice have no basis in modern science , and TCM practitioners do not agree on what diagnosis and treatments should be used for any given person. A 2007 editorial in

2016-572: Is currently no evidence that the Shang nobility used herbal remedies. Stone and bone needles found in ancient tombs led Joseph Needham to speculate that acupuncture might have been carried out in the Shang dynasty. This being said, most historians now make a distinction between medical lancing (or bloodletting ) and acupuncture in the narrower sense of using metal needles to attempt to treat illnesses by stimulating points along circulation channels ("meridians") in accordance with beliefs related to

2128-413: Is not a remnant of the humor theory. It is merely a literal use of humoral , i.e. pertaining to bodily fluids (such as blood and lymph). The concept of humorism was not definitively disproven until 1858. There were no studies performed to prove or disprove the impact of dysfunction in known bodily organs producing named fluids (humors) on temperament traits simply because the list of temperament traits

2240-494: Is not capable of converting abnormal chylous into normal chylous and normal humors. Humors are the end product of gastric digestion, but they are not the end product of the digestion cycle, so an abnormal humor produced by hepatic digestion will affect other digestive organs. According to Hippocratic humoral theory, jaundice is present in the Hippocratic Corpus . Some of the first descriptions of jaundice come from

2352-537: Is one of the earliest written medical books in China. Written during the Eastern Han dynasty between 200 and 250 CE, it was the combined effort of practitioners in the Qin and Han dynasties who summarized, collected and compiled the results of pharmacological experience during their time periods. It was the first systematic summary of Chinese herbal medicine. Most of the pharmacological theories and compatibility rules and

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2464-418: Is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess, or is separated in the body and not mixed with others. The body depends heavily on the four humors because their balanced combination helps to keep people in good health. Having

2576-454: Is related to the needlepoint methods. The book is credited as developing its own path, while also inheriting the theories from Huangdi Neijing. The content includes physiology, pathology, diagnosis, treatment contents, and a more essential and specific discussion of pulse diagnosis. It has become one of the four classics for Chinese medicine practitioners to learn from and has impacted the medical development in China. Shennong Ben Cao Jing

2688-422: Is suitable for the liver to absorb and carry on digestion. Chylous is changed into chymous in the hepatic digestion stage. Chymous is composed of the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These four humors then circulate in the blood vessels . In the last stage of digestion, tissue digestion, food becomes similar to the organ tissue for which it is destined. If anything goes wrong leading up to

2800-406: Is the cause of tumours , of chlorosis , of rheumatism , and cacochymia – where is it? Who will ever see it? Who has ever seen it? What can we say of this fanciful classification of humors into four groups, of which two are absolutely imaginary?" The seasonal association of phlegm is winter due to the natural properties of being cold and wet. Humors were believed to be produced via digestion as

2912-511: Is widely used in the Sinosphere . One of the basic tenets is that the body's qi is circulating through channels called meridians having branches connected to bodily organs and functions. There is no evidence that meridians or vital energy exist. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, similar to

3024-657: The Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and the Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Casket , which were edited separately in the eleventh century, under the Song dynasty . Nanjing or "Classic of Difficult Issues", originally called "The Yellow Emperor Eighty-one Nan Jing", ascribed to Bian Que in the eastern Han dynasty . This book was compiled in the form of question-and-answer explanations. A total of 81 questions have been discussed. Therefore, it

3136-622: The Inner Canon and developed a complete medical system centered on needling therapy. The AB Canon of Acupuncture and Moxibustion ( Zhenjiu jiayi jing 針灸甲乙經 , compiled by Huangfu Mi sometime between 256 and 282 CE) assembled a consistent body of doctrines concerning acupuncture; whereas the Canon of the Pulse ( Maijing 脈經 ; c. 280) presented itself as a "comprehensive handbook of diagnostics and therapy." Around 900–1000 AD, Chinese were

3248-630: The Tung Wah Hospital was established in Hong Kong in 1869 based on the widespread rejection of Western medicine for pre-existing medical practices, although Western medicine would still be practiced in the hospital alongside Chinese medicinal practices. The Tung Wah Hospital was likely connected to another Chinese medical institution, the Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital of Singapore, which had previous community links to Tung Wah,

3360-506: The five phases . The "Documentation of Chinese materia medica" (CMM) dates back to around 1,100 BCE when only a few dozen drugs were described. By the end of the 16th century, the number of drugs documented had reached close to 1,900. And by the end of the last century, published records of CMM had reached 12,800 drugs." Starting in the 1950s, these precepts were standardized in the People's Republic of China, including attempts to integrate them with modern notions of anatomy and pathology . In

3472-405: The humoral theory of ancient Greece and ancient Rome . The demand for traditional medicines in China was a major generator of illegal wildlife smuggling , linked to the killing and smuggling of endangered animals . However, Chinese authorities have in recent years cracked down on illegal wildlife smuggling, and the industry has increasingly turned to cultivated alternatives. Scholars in

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3584-464: The "Father of Modern Medicine". With the advent of the Doctrine of Specific Etiology , the humoral theory's demise hastened even further. This demonstrates that there is only one precise cause and one specific issue for each and every sickness or disorder that has been diagnosed. Additionally, the identification of messenger molecules like hormones, growth factors, and neurotransmitters suggests that

3696-570: The 1950s, the Chinese government promoted a systematized form of TCM. Traces of therapeutic activities in China date from the Shang dynasty (14th–11th centuries BCE). Though the Shang did not have a concept of "medicine" as distinct from other health practices, their oracular inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells refer to illnesses that affected the Shang royal family: eye disorders, toothaches, bloated abdomen, and such. Shang elites usually attributed them to curses sent by their ancestors. There

3808-554: The 1970s from the Mawangdui tomb that had been sealed in 168 BCE, the Inner Canon rejected the influence of spirits and the use of magic. It was also one of the first books in which the cosmological doctrines of Yinyang and the Five Phases were brought to a mature synthesis. The Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and Miscellaneous Illnesses (Shang Han Lun) was collated by Zhang Zhongjing sometime between 196 and 220 CE; at

3920-460: The Chinese philosopher Zhang Gongyao triggered a national debate with an article entitled "Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine", arguing that TCM was a pseudoscience that should be abolished in public healthcare and academia. The Chinese government took the stance that TCM is a science and continued to encourage its development. There are concerns over a number of potentially toxic plants, animal parts, and mineral Chinese compounds, as well as

4032-472: The Five Elements, but also of the "Great Numbers" ( 大數 ; dà shū ) For example, the number of acu-points has at times been seen to be 365, corresponding with the number of days in a year; and the number of main meridians–12–has been seen as corresponding with the number of rivers flowing through the ancient Chinese empire . Humoral theory Humorism , the humoral theory , or humoralism ,

4144-576: The Five Phase theory, were used to explain health and disease in texts such as Huangdi neijing . Yin and yang are the changing factors in cosmology, with qi as the vital force or energy of life. The Five Phase theory ( Wuxing ) of the Han dynasty contains the elements wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. By understanding medicine from a cosmology perspective, historians better understand Chinese medical and social classifications such as gender, which

4256-538: The Hippocratic Corpus. Despite the fact that the Hippocratic physicians' therapeutic approaches have little to do with contemporary medical practice, their capacity for observation as they described the various forms of jaundice is remarkable. In the Hippocratic Corpus, the Hippocratic physicians make multiple references to jaundice. At that time, jaundice was viewed as an illness unto itself rather than

4368-415: The Hippocratic humors. He believed that phlegm did not influence character. In his On Hippocrates ' The Nature of Man , Galen stated: "Sharpness and intelligence ( ὀξὺ καὶ συνετόν ) are caused by yellow bile in the soul, perseverance and consistency ( ἑδραῖον καὶ βέβαιον ) by the melancholic humor, and simplicity and naivety ( ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἠλιθιώτερον ) by blood. But the nature of phlegm has no effect on

4480-456: The Hippocratic physicians (icterus). The ailment appears multiple times in the Hippocratic Corpus, where its genesis, description, prognosis, and therapy are given. The five kinds of jaundice mentioned in the Hippocratic Corpus all share a yellow or greenish skin color. A modern doctor will undoubtedly start to think of the symptoms listed in contemporary atlases of medicine after reading the clinical symptoms of each variety of jaundice listed in

4592-716: The History of Medicine . Ian Johnson says, on the other hand, that the English-language term "traditional Chinese medicine" was coined by "party propagandists" in 1955. Nathan Sivin criticizes attempts to treat medicine and medical practices in traditional China as if they were a single system. Instead, he says, there were 2,000 years of "medical system in turmoil" and speaks of a "myth of an unchanging medical tradition". He urges that "Traditional medicine translated purely into terms of modern medicine becomes partly nonsensical, partly irrelevant, and partly mistaken; that

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4704-477: The Temperaments , Galen further emphasized the importance of the qualities. An ideal temperament involved a proportionally balanced mixture of the four qualities. Galen identified four temperaments in which one of the qualities (warm, cold, moist, or dry) predominated, and four more in which a combination of two (warm and moist, warm and dry, cold and dry, or cold and moist) dominated. These last four, named for

4816-487: The basic tenets of TCM is that the body's qi (sometimes translated as vital energy ) is circulating through channels called meridians having branches connected to bodily organs and functions. The concept of vital energy is pseudoscientific. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, similar to Classical humoral theory . TCM has also been controversial within China. In 2006,

4928-420: The blood was the source of energy for the body and the soul. Blood was believed to consist of small proportional amounts of the other three humors. This meant that taking a blood sample would allow for determination of the balance of the four humors in the body. It was associated with a sanguine nature (enthusiastic, active, and social). Blood is considered to be hot and wet, sharing these characteristics with

5040-460: The body were made. Robin Fåhræus (1921), a Swedish physician who devised the erythrocyte sedimentation rate , suggested that the four humors were based upon the observation of blood clotting in a transparent container. When blood is drawn in a glass container and left undisturbed for about an hour, four different layers can be seen: a dark clot forms at the bottom (the "black bile"); above the clot

5152-431: The body, depending on diet and activity. When a patient was suffering from a surplus or imbalance of one of the four humors, then said patient's personality and/or physical health could be negatively affected. Therefore, the goal of treatment was to rid the body of some of the excess humor through techniques like purging, bloodletting, catharsis, diuresis, and others. Bloodletting was already a prominent medical procedure by

5264-443: The body, rather than ingested, he believed that different foods had varying potential to act upon the body to produce different humors. Warm foods, for example, tended to produce yellow bile, while cold foods tended to produce phlegm. Seasons of the year, periods of life, geographic regions, and occupations also influenced the nature of the humors formed. As such, certain seasons and geographic areas were understood to cause imbalances in

5376-433: The character of the soul ( τοῦ δὲ φλέγµατος ἡ φύσις εἰς µὲν ἠθοποιῗαν ἄχρηστος )." He further said that blood is a mixture of the four elements: water, air, fire, and earth. These terms only partly correspond to modern medical terminology, in which there is no distinction between black and yellow bile, and phlegm has a very different meaning. It was believed that the humors were the basic substances from which all liquids in

5488-457: The circulation of "Qi". The earliest evidence for acupuncture in this sense dates to the second or first century BCE. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon ( Huangdi Neijing ) , the oldest received work of Chinese medical theory, was compiled during the Han dynasty around the first century BCE on the basis of shorter texts from different medical lineages. Written in the form of dialogues between

5600-730: The colonial and feudal past. The government established a grassroots health care system as a step in the search for a new national identity and tried to revitalize traditional medicine and made large investments in traditional medicine to try to develop affordable medical care and public health facilities. The Ministry of Health directed health care throughout China and established primary care units. Chinese physicians trained in Western medicine were required to learn traditional medicine, while traditional healers received training in modern methods. This strategy aimed to integrate modern medical concepts and methods and revitalize appropriate aspects of traditional medicine. Therefore, traditional Chinese medicine

5712-473: The early ninth century. Use of the practice in modern times is pseudoscience . Humoral theory was the grand unified theory of medicine, before the invention of modern medicine, for more than 2000 years. The theory was one of the fundamental tenets of the teachings of the Greek physician-philosopher Hippocrates (460–370 BC), who is regarded as the first practitioner of medicine, appropriately referred to as

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5824-505: The efficacy of any Traditional Medicine intervention." A 2012 review of cost-effectiveness research for TCM found that studies had low levels of evidence , with no beneficial outcomes. Pharmaceutical research on the potential for creating new drugs from traditional remedies has few successful results. Proponents suggest that research has so far missed key features of the art of TCM, such as unknown interactions between various ingredients and complex interactive biological systems. One of

5936-450: The end of the Han dynasty. Focusing on drug prescriptions rather than acupuncture, it was the first medical work to combine Yinyang and the Five Phases with drug therapy. This formulary was also the earliest public Chinese medical text to group symptoms into clinically useful "patterns" ( zheng 證 ) that could serve as targets for therapy. Having gone through numerous changes over time, the formulary now circulates as two distinct books:

6048-466: The facilitation of disease. Trafficked and farm-raised animals used in TCM are a source of several fatal zoonotic diseases . There are additional concerns over the illegal trade and transport of endangered species including rhinoceroses and tigers, and the welfare of specially farmed animals, including bears. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a broad range of medicine practices sharing common concepts which have been developed in China and are based on

6160-410: The final products of hepatic digestion. Digestion is a continuous process taking place in every animal, and it can be divided into four sequential stages. The gastric digestion stage, the hepatic digestion stage, the vascular digestion stage, and the tissue digestion stage. Each stage digests food until it becomes suitable for use by the body. In gastric digestion, food is made into chylous, which

6272-432: The first century, but venesection took on even more significance once Galen of Pergamum declared blood to be the most prevalent humor. The volume of blood extracted ranged from a few drops to several litres over the course of several days, depending on the patient's condition and the doctor's practice. Even though humorism theory had several models that used two, three, and five components, the most famous model consists of

6384-433: The first to develop a form of vaccination, known as variolation or inoculation , to prevent smallpox . Chinese physicians had realised that when healthy people were exposed to smallpox scab tissue, they had a smaller chance of being infected by the disease later on. The common methods of inoculation at the time was through crushing smallpox scabs into powder and breathing it through the nose. Prominent medical scholars of

6496-419: The four humors described by Hippocrates and developed further by Galen . The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Greek: μέλαινα χολή , melaina chole ), yellow bile (Greek: ξανθὴ χολή , xanthe chole ), phlegm (Greek: φλέγμα , phlegma ), and blood (Greek: αἷμα , haima ). Each corresponds to one of the traditional four temperaments . Based on Hippocratic medicine, it

6608-636: The four humors with their corresponding elements, seasons, sites of formation, and resulting temperaments: Medieval medical tradition in the Golden Age of Islam adopted the theory of humorism from Greco-Roman medicine, notably via the Persian polymath Avicenna 's The Canon of Medicine (1025). Avicenna summarized the four humors and temperaments as follows: The Unani school of medicine, practiced in Perso-Arabic countries, India, and Pakistan,

6720-479: The healing strategies of the practitioner was unique every time to the specific diagnosis of the patient. Medical case studies existed throughout Chinese history, but "individually authored and published case history" was a prominent creation of the Ming dynasty. An example such case studies would be the literati physician, Cheng Congzhou, collection of 93 cases published in 1644. Historians of science have developed

6832-474: The history of medicine in China distinguish its doctrines and practice from those of present-day TCM. J. A. Jewell and S. M. Hillier state that the term "Traditional Chinese Medicine" became an established term due to the work of Dr. Kan-Wen Ma, a Western-trained medical doctor who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and immigrated to Britain, joining the University of London's Wellcome Institute for

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6944-470: The human body is opposed to the European duality of a separate mind and body. It is critical for scholars to understand the fundamental differences in concepts of the body in order to connect the medical theory of the classics to the "human organism" it is explaining. Chinese scholars established a correlation between the cosmos and the "human organism". The basic components of cosmology, qi, yin yang and

7056-410: The human body, according to Hippocrates, are in harmony with one another and act as a catalyst for preserving health. Hippocrates' theory of four humors was linked with the popular theory of the four elements (earth, fire, water, and air) proposed by Empedocles , but this link was not proposed by Hippocrates or Galen, who referred primarily to bodily fluids. While Galen thought that humors were formed in

7168-400: The humoral theory has not yet been made fully moribund. Humoral theory is still present in modern medical terminology, which refers to humoral immunity when discussing elements of immunity that circulate in the bloodstream, such as hormones and antibodies. Modern medicine refers to humoral immunity or humoral regulation when describing substances such as hormones and antibodies , but this

7280-514: The humors ( bodily fluid ) in a person can be a sign of illness. Hippocrates, and then Galen , suggested that a moderate imbalance in the mixture of these fluids produces behavioral patterns. One of the treatises attributed to Hippocrates, On the Nature of Man , describes the theory as follows: The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. Health

7392-406: The humors with which they were associated—sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic—eventually became better known than the others. While the term temperament came to refer just to psychological dispositions, Galen used it to refer to bodily dispositions, which determined a person's susceptibility to particular diseases, as well as behavioral and emotional inclinations. Disease could also be

7504-419: The humors, leading to varying types of disease across time and place. For example, cities exposed to hot winds were seen as having higher rates of digestive problems as a result of excess phlegm running down from the head, while cities exposed to cold winds were associated with diseases of the lungs, acute diseases, and "hardness of the bowels", as well as ophthalmies (issues of the eyes), and nosebleeds. Cities to

7616-424: The individual. A fundamental idea of Hippocratic medicine was the endeavor to pinpoint the origins of illnesses in both the physiology of the human body and the influence of potentially hazardous environmental variables like air, water, and nutrition, and every humor has a distinct composition and is secreted by a different organ. Aristotle's concept of eucrasia—a state resembling equilibrium—and its relationship to

7728-538: The integration of TCM and Western medicine, and in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, promoted TCM as inexpensive and popular. The creation of modern TCM was largely spearheaded by Mao Zedong , despite the fact that, according to The Private Life of Chairman Mao , he did not believe in its effectiveness. After the opening of relations between the United States and China after 1972, there

7840-454: The journal Nature wrote that TCM "remains poorly researched and supported, and most of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action ." It also described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience ". A review of the literature in 2008 found that scientists are "still unable to find a shred of evidence" according to standards of science-based medicine for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi , meridians, and acupuncture points, and that

7952-404: The legendary Yellow Emperor and his ministers, it offers explanations on the relation between humans, their environment, and the cosmos , on the contents of the body, on human vitality and pathology, on the symptoms of illness, and on how to make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions in light of all these factors. Unlike earlier texts like Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments , which was excavated in

8064-408: The maintenance of the human body, and the expression of these functions is shown in characteristic activities (called energeiai ) of a person. While the correspondence of parts of the body to the soul was an influential concept, Galen decided that the interaction of the four humors with natural bodily mechanisms were responsible for human development and this connection inspired his understanding of

8176-415: The mid-19th century by J. L. Ideler. In this text, the author establishes the relationship between elements of the universe (air, water, earth, fire) and elements of the man (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm). He said that: Seventeenth century English playwright Ben Jonson wrote humor plays , where character types were based on their humoral complexion. It was thought that the nutritional value of

8288-495: The nature of the components of the body. Galen recalls the correspondence between humors and seasons in his On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato , and says that, "As for ages and the seasons, the child ( παῖς ) corresponds to spring, the young man ( νεανίσκος ) to summer, the mature man ( παρακµάζων ) to autumn, and the old man ( γέρων ) to winter". He also related a correspondence between humors and seasons based on

8400-624: The neo-classical revival in Europe, the humor theory dominated medical practice, and the theory of humoral types made periodic appearances in drama. The humors were an important and popular iconographic theme in European art, found in paintings, tapestries, and sets of prints. The humors can be found in Elizabethan works , such as in The Taming of the Shrew , in which the character Petruchio,

8512-483: The organization of society, the universe, and the human body and other forms of life into an "all-embracing order of things". Each of these traditional systems was organized with such qualities as heat and cold, wet and dry, light and darkness, qualities that also align the seasons, compass directions, and the human cycle of birth, growth, and death. They provided, Leslie continued, a "comprehensive way of conceiving patterns that ran through all of nature," and they "served as

8624-526: The physical nature and function of the organ systems. Galen combined his interpretation of the humors with his collection of ideas concerning nature from past philosophers in order to find conclusions about how the body works. For example, Galen maintained the idea of the presence of the Platonic tripartite soul, which consisted of " thumos (spiritedness), epithumos (directed spiritedness, i.e. desire), and Sophia (wisdom)". Through this, Galen found

8736-405: The plague. For example, chamomile was used to decrease heat, and lower excessive bile humor. Arsenic was used in a poultice bag to 'draw out' the excess humor(s) that led to symptoms of the plague. Apophlegmatisms , in pre-modern medicine, were medications chewed in order to draw away phlegm and humors. Although advances in cellular pathology and chemistry criticized humoralism by the 17th century,

8848-486: The post-Han period included Tao Hongjing (456–536), Sun Simiao of the Sui and Tang dynasties, Zhang Jiegu ( c.  1151 –1234), and Li Shizhen (1518–1593). Chinese communities living in colonial port cities were influenced by the diverse cultures they encountered, which also led to evolving understandings of medical practices where Chinese forms of medicine were combined with Western medical knowledge. For example,

8960-579: The president of the Chinese Medical Association said that, "This One Medicine, will possess a basis in modern natural sciences, will have absorbed the ancient and the new, the Chinese and the foreign, all medical achievements – and will be China's New Medicine!" During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the CCP and the government emphasized modernity, cultural identity and China's social and economic reconstruction and contrasted them to

9072-434: The production of humors, there will be an imbalance leading to disease. Proper organ functioning is necessary in the production of good humor. The stomach and liver also have to function normally for proper digestion. If there are any abnormalities in gastric digestion, the liver, blood vessels, and tissues cannot be provided with the raw chylous, which can cause abnormal humor and blood composition. A healthy functioning liver

9184-419: The properties of both. Blood, as a humor, was considered hot and wet. This gave it a correspondence to spring. Yellow bile was considered hot and dry, which related it to summer. Black bile was considered cold and dry, and thus related to autumn. Phlegm, cold and wet, was related to winter. Galen also believed that the characteristics of the soul follow the mixtures of the body, but he did not apply this idea to

9296-626: The proposed "seven emotions and harmony" principle have played a role in the practice of medicine for thousands of years. Therefore, it has been a textbook for medical workers in modern China. The full text of Shennong Ben Cao Jing in English can be found online. In the centuries that followed, several shorter books tried to summarize or systematize the contents of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon . The Canon of Problems (probably second century CE) tried to reconcile divergent doctrines from

9408-490: The relationships between the Five Phases in terms of sequence, of acting on each other, of counteraction, etc. All these aspects of Five Phases theory constitute the basis of the zàng-fǔ concept, and thus have great influence regarding the TCM model of the body. Five Phase theory is also applied in diagnosis and therapy. Correspondences between the body and the universe have historically not only been seen in terms of

9520-435: The result of the "corruption" of one or more of the humors, which could be caused by environmental circumstances, dietary changes, or many other factors. These deficits were thought to be caused by vapors inhaled or absorbed by the body. Greeks and Romans, and the later Muslim and Western European medical establishments that adopted and adapted classical medical philosophy, believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in

9632-403: The right amount of humor is essential for health. The pathophysiology of disease is consequently brought on by humor excesses and/or deficiencies. The existence of fundamental biochemical substances and structural components in the body remains a compellingly shared point with Hippocratic beliefs, despite the fact that current science has moved away from those four Hippocratic humors. Although

9744-451: The right balance of the four humors allow for the maintenance of human health, offering a more mathematical approach to medicine. The imbalance of humors, or dyscrasia , was thought to be the direct cause of all diseases. Health was associated with a balance of humors, or eucrasia . The qualities of the humors, in turn, influenced the nature of the diseases they caused. Yellow bile caused warm diseases and phlegm caused cold diseases. In On

9856-506: The season of spring. Yellow bile was associated with a choleric nature (ambitious, decisive, aggressive, and short-tempered). It was thought to be fluid found within the gallbladder , or in excretions such as vomit and feces. The associated qualities for yellow bile are hot and dry with the natural association of summer and fire. It was believed that an excess of this humor in an individual would result in emotional irregularities such as increased anger or irrational behaviour. Black bile

9968-612: The season reflect the nature of man. Phlegm was associated with all phlegmatic nature, thought to be associated with reserved behavior. The phlegm of humorism is far from phlegm as it is defined today. Phlegm was used as a general term to describe white or colorless secretions such as pus, mucus, saliva, sweat, or semen. Phlegm was also associated with the brain, possibly due to the color and consistency of brain tissue. The French physiologist and Nobel laureate Charles Richet , when describing humorism's "phlegm or pituitary secretion" in 1910, asked rhetorically, "this strange liquid, which

10080-433: The study of medicine in traditional China into a field with its own scholarly associations, journals, graduate programs, and debates with each other. Many distinguish "medicine in traditional China" from the recent traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which took elements from traditional texts and practices to construct a systematic body. Paul Unschuld, for instance, sees a "departure of TCM from its historical origins." What

10192-429: The term 身 , and observing the history from the perspective of cosmology rather than biology. In Chinese classical texts, the term 身 is the closest historical translation to the English word "body" because it sometimes refers to the physical human body in terms of being weighed or measured, but the term is to be understood as an "ensemble of functions" encompassing both the human psyche and emotions. This concept of

10304-604: The theory had dominated Western medical thinking for more than 2,000 years. Only in some instances did the theory of humoralism wane into obscurity. One such instance occurred in the sixth and seventh centuries in the Byzantine Empire when traditional secular Greek culture gave way to Christian influences. Though the use of humoralist medicine continued during this time, its influence was diminished in favor of religion. The revival of Greek humoralism, owing in part to changing social and economic factors, did not begin until

10416-437: The theory of the four humors does appear in some Hippocratic texts, other Hippocratic writers accepted the existence of only two humors, while some refrained from discussing the humoral theory at all. Humoralism, or the doctrine of the four temperaments, as a medical theory retained its popularity for centuries, largely through the influence of the writings of Galen (129–201 AD). The four essential elements—humors—that make up

10528-511: The traditional principles of acupuncture are deeply flawed. "Acupuncture points and meridians are not a reality", the review continued, but "merely the product of an ancient Chinese philosophy". In June 2019, the World Health Organization included traditional Chinese medicine in a global diagnostic compendium, but a spokesman said this was "not an endorsement of the scientific validity of any Traditional Medicine practice or

10640-410: The universe can be divided into. Primordial analogies for these aspects are the sun-facing (yang) and the shady (yin) side of a hill. Two other commonly used representational allegories of yin and yang are water and fire. In the yin–yang theory , detailed attributions are made regarding the yin or yang character of things: The concept of yin and yang is also applicable to the human body; for example,

10752-633: The upper part of the body and the back are assigned to yang, while the lower part of the body is believed to have the yin character. Yin and yang characterization also extends to the various body functions, and – more importantly – to disease symptoms (e.g., cold and heat sensations are assumed to be yin and yang symptoms, respectively). Thus, yin and yang of the body are seen as phenomena whose lack (or over-abundance) comes with characteristic symptom combinations: TCM also identifies drugs believed to treat these specific symptom combinations, i.e., to reinforce yin and yang. Strict rules are identified to apply to

10864-404: The west, meanwhile, were believed to produce weak, unhealthy, pale people that were subject to all manners of disease. In the treatise, On Airs, Waters, and Places , a Hippocratic physician is described arriving to an unnamed city where they test various factors of nature including the wind, water, and soil to predict the direct influence on the diseases specific to the city based on the season and

10976-747: The world's largest patent office in 2011. To streamline the patent application process for patentees filing under both the Chinese and United States systems, SIPO and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) established a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program on December 1, 2011. This article about government in the People's Republic of China is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Traditional Chinese medicine Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: Traditional Chinese medicine ( TCM )

11088-485: The writing of medical theorist Alcmaeon of Croton (c. 540–500 BC). His list of humors was longer and included fundamental elements described by Empedocles , such as water, earth, fire, air, etc. Hippocrates is usually credited with applying this idea to medicine. In contrast to Alcmaeon, Hippocrates suggested that humors are the vital bodily fluids: blood , phlegm , yellow bile, and black bile. Alcmaeon and Hippocrates posited that an extreme excess or deficiency of any of

11200-572: Was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers . Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 17th century and it was definitively disproved in the 1850s with the advent of germ theory , which was able to show that many diseases previously thought to be humoral were in fact caused by microbes. The concept of "humors" may have origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine , or Mesopotamia , though it

11312-416: Was associated with a melancholy nature, the word melancholy itself deriving from the Greek for 'black bile', μέλαινα χολή ( melaina kholé ). Depression was attributed to excess or unnatural black bile secreted by the spleen. Cancer was also attributed to an excess of black bile concentrated in a specific area. The seasonal association of black bile was to autumn as the cold and dry characteristics of

11424-405: Was believed that for a body to be healthy, the four humors should be balanced in amount and strength. The proper blending and balance of the four humors was known as eukrasia . Humorism theory was improved by Galen, who incorporated his understanding of the humors into his interpretation of the human body. He believed the interactions of the humors within the body were the key to investigating

11536-633: Was defined by a domination or remission of yang in terms of yin. These two distinctions are imperative when analyzing the history of traditional Chinese medical science. A majority of Chinese medical history written after the classical canons comes in the form of primary source case studies where academic physicians record the illness of a particular person and the healing techniques used, as well as their effectiveness. Historians have noted that Chinese scholars wrote these studies instead of "books of prescriptions or advice manuals;" in their historical and environmental understanding, no two illnesses were alike so

11648-580: Was established for similar reasons and also provided both Western and Chinese medical care. By 1935, English-language newspapers in Colonial Singapore already used the term "Traditional Chinese Medicine" to label Chinese ethnic medical practices. In 1950, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong announced support of traditional Chinese medicine; this was despite the fact that Mao did not personally believe in and did not use TCM, according to his personal physician Li Zhisui . In 1952,

11760-456: Was first seriously challenged by Andreas Vesalius , who mostly criticized Galen's theories of human anatomy and not the chemical hypothesis of behavioural regulation (temperament). Typical 18th-century practices such as bleeding a sick person or applying hot cups to a person were based on the humoral theory of imbalances of fluids (blood and bile in those cases). Methods of treatment like bloodletting, emetics and purges were aimed at expelling

11872-519: Was great interest in the West for what is now called traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM is said to be based on such texts as Huangdi Neijing (The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor), and Compendium of Materia Medica , a sixteenth-century encyclopedic work, and includes various forms of herbal medicine , acupuncture , cupping therapy , gua sha , massage (tui na) , bonesetter (die-da) , exercise (qigong) , and dietary therapy. TCM

11984-435: Was later absorbed by Daoism . Philosophical texts influenced TCM, mostly by being grounded in the same theories of qi , yin-yang and wuxing and microcosm-macrocosm analogies. Yin and yang are ancient Chinese deductive reasoning concepts used within Chinese medical diagnosis which can be traced back to the Shang dynasty (1600–1100 BCE). They represent two abstract and complementary aspects that every phenomenon in

12096-446: Was not defined up until the end of the 20th century. Theophrastus and others developed a set of characters based on the humors. Those with too much blood were sanguine. Those with too much phlegm were phlegmatic. Those with too much yellow bile were choleric, and those with too much black bile were melancholic. The idea of human personality based on humors contributed to the character comedies of Menander and, later, Plautus . Through

12208-617: Was not regulated. The establishment in 1870 of the Tung Wah Hospital was the first use of Chinese medicine for the treatment in Chinese hospitals providing free medical services. As the promotion of Western medicine by the British government started from 1940, Western medicine started being popular among Hong Kong population. In 1959, Hong Kong had researched the use of traditional Chinese medicine to replace Western medicine. Historians have noted two key aspects of Chinese medical history: understanding conceptual differences when translating

12320-467: Was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers. The word humor is a translation of Greek χυμός , chymos (literally 'juice' or ' sap ', metaphorically 'flavor'). Early texts on Indian Ayurveda medicine presented a theory of three humors (doṣas), which they sometimes linked with the five elements ( pañca-bhūta ): earth, water, fire, air, and space. The concept of "humors" (chemical systems regulating human behaviour) became more prominent from

12432-437: Was not yet popular, and Western medicine doctors were mostly foreigners; local residents mostly relied on Chinese medicine practitioners. In 1841, the British government of Hong Kong issued an announcement pledging to govern Hong Kong residents in accordance with all the original rituals, customs and private legal property rights. As traditional Chinese medicine had always been used in China, the use of traditional Chinese medicine

12544-478: Was re-created in response to Western medicine. In 1968, the CCP supported a new system of health care delivery for rural areas. Villages were assigned a barefoot doctor (a medical staff with basic medical skills and knowledge to deal with minor illnesses) responsible for basic medical care. The medical staff combined the values of traditional China with modern methods to provide health and medical care to poor farmers in remote rural areas. The barefoot doctors became

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