Pre-historic
The earliest known allusion to Chinese herbal medicine stretches back at least
4,000 years in mainland China, before the era of written historical records. Bone
fragments carved with Chinese characters representing medicinal substances have
been found, and are thought to have been used by shaman-like healers of this
period in Chinese history. During this era, shamans chose herbs for their
ability to expel the evil spirits causing the patient's symptoms. There
are references to these practices in Chinese medicinal text that were
constructed later in the nation's history. For example, one passage from
The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, the Emperor asks his minister
why spells and invocations to the spirits no longer are as effective as they
once were. The minister replies that since diseases have become more
severe and prevalent, stronger measures were now necessary to drive evil spirits
away. Interestingly, the increase in disease prevalence that the emperor
remarks on probably reflected the growth of towns and concomitant accelerated
spread of disease from person to person. It was this increase in disease
spread that may have lead Chinese shamans to turn to herbal products for the
'stronger' measures needed to expunge evil spirits.
Written History
During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) herbalists recorded in texts the basic
ideas and principles that would become the foundation of Chinese herbalism. One such volume was found in 1973, when the grave of a
Han aristocrat was exhumed in an archeological dig. The grave contained
silk-scrolls with references to 247 medicinal substances. The grave was
dated at 168 B.C., making this the oldest existing medical reference, and the
beginning of the written history of Chinese herbalism.
The next landmark in the timeline of Chinese herbalism was the creation of
the Materia Medica. This text contained the first organized tables of
individual herbs and descriptions of their characteristics and therapeutic uses
(e.g taste, heating or cooling nature, which organs and meridians were effected,
dosage ranges, degree of toxicity, effects on symptoms). The data gathered
was enormous; for example, the earliest Materia Medica, the Sheng Nung Peng
Tsao, recorded over 10,000 medicinal substances! In addition to being a
monumental work, the Medica also represent a shift in Chinese medicinal (and
perhaps cultural) thinking, as it deleted any reference to shamanic influence
and focused instead on the purely physical actions of herbs and their effects on
the individual's sensations and symptoms. It can be assumed that Chinese
herbalists must have observed the effects of the herbal preparation on their
patient in order to gather these data for publication. Herbs recorded in
the Medica were organized in major categories of common use. For example:
- herbs that
expel heat
- herbs that
encourage downward
draining
- herbs that
relieve wind-dampness
- herbs that
reduce phlegm and coughing
- aromatic
herbs that oppose dampness
- herbs that
relieve food stagnation
- herbs that
regulate the qi
- herbs that
regulate the blood
- herbs that
warm the interior and expel cold
- tonifying
herbs
- herbs that
stabilize and bind
- herbs
that calm the spirit
- herbs that
expunge parasites
- herbs
that extinguish wind and stop tremors
- aromatic
herbs that clear and open the orifices
The Materia Media went through many editions and revisions, with all later
additions following the same style and format of the classic edition. In
addition, other medical texts began appearing. The Discussion of Illnesses
Induced by Damage from Cold is one of the first specific text on herbal formulas
for specific disharmonies. "Damage by Cold" describes the class of
disharmony, including theories of disequilibrium, the different "phases" of
disease, and the treatment that is appropriate to each phase.
Recent History
By 1596, a refined and updated version of the Materia Media was created.
This revision was known as the Ben Cao Gang Mu of the Ming medical literatus Li
Shizhen (1518 - 1593), and is notable as the first edition in a line of
stripped-down Media (only 1892 entries) that survived the collapse of the Manchu
Dynasty 3 centuries later. The regime change that occurred marginalized
the practice of herbalism for several years, but in the last century,
herbalistic practices that where based on
these latest versions of the Media has crept back into the Chinese mainstream
and is spreading globally.
Today, the therapy of Chinese herbalism is based on philosophies and
principles described in the next section, Philosophy. |
