Chinese medicineChina also developed a large body of traditional medicine. Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derived from empirical observations of disease and illness by Taoist physicians and reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales. These causative principles, whether material, essential, or mystical, correlate as the expression of the natural order of the universe.
The foundational text of Chinese medicine is the Huangdi neijing, or Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon, which is composed of two books: the Suwen 素問 ("Basic Questions") and the Lingshu 靈樞 ("Divine Pivot"). Although the Neijing has long been attributed to the mythical Yellow Emperor (twenty-seventh century BC), Chinese scholars started doubting this attribution as early as the eleventh century and now usually date the Neijing to the late Warring States period (5th century-221 BC).[31] Because the medical "silk manuscripts" dating from around 200 BC that were excavated in the 1970s from the tomb of a Han-dynasty noble in Mawangdui are undoubtedly ancestors of the received Neijing, scholars like Nathan Sivin now argue that the Neijing was first compiled in the 1st century BC.[32]
During the Han dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing, who was mayor of Changsha near the end of the second century A.D., wrote a Treatise on Cold Damage, which contains the earliest known reference to the Neijing Suwen. The Jin Dynasty practitioner and advocate of acupuncture and moxibustion, Huangfu Mi (215-282 A.D), also quotes the Yellow Emperor in his Jiayi jing, ca. 265 A.D. During the Tang Dynasty, Wang Bing claimed to have located a copy of the originals of the Suwen, which he expanded and edited substantially. This work was revisited by an imperial commission during the eleventh century A.D., and the result is our best extant representation of the foundational roots of traditional Chinese medicine.
The foundational text of Chinese medicine is the Huangdi neijing, or Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon, which is composed of two books: the Suwen 素問 ("Basic Questions") and the Lingshu 靈樞 ("Divine Pivot"). Although the Neijing has long been attributed to the mythical Yellow Emperor (twenty-seventh century BC), Chinese scholars started doubting this attribution as early as the eleventh century and now usually date the Neijing to the late Warring States period (5th century-221 BC).[31] Because the medical "silk manuscripts" dating from around 200 BC that were excavated in the 1970s from the tomb of a Han-dynasty noble in Mawangdui are undoubtedly ancestors of the received Neijing, scholars like Nathan Sivin now argue that the Neijing was first compiled in the 1st century BC.[32]
During the Han dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing, who was mayor of Changsha near the end of the second century A.D., wrote a Treatise on Cold Damage, which contains the earliest known reference to the Neijing Suwen. The Jin Dynasty practitioner and advocate of acupuncture and moxibustion, Huangfu Mi (215-282 A.D), also quotes the Yellow Emperor in his Jiayi jing, ca. 265 A.D. During the Tang Dynasty, Wang Bing claimed to have located a copy of the originals of the Suwen, which he expanded and edited substantially. This work was revisited by an imperial commission during the eleventh century A.D., and the result is our best extant representation of the foundational roots of traditional Chinese medicine.
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