Traditional Chinese Medical Texts on Life

Through thousands of years of fighting against diseases humans have accumulated a wealth of experience and knowledge, and the legacy of traditional medicine is still highly visible in contemporary life.

The journey of life begins at the moment of conception, followed by pregnancy, tocolysis and labor. As a baby's immune system is not yet fully developed, newborns often exhibit symptoms such as convulsion, digestive problems, vomiting, diarrhea, poxes and papules.

Different medical traditions describe and understand the human body in vastly different ways. Chinese medicine holds that the human body is covered with acupuncture points that are joined in pathways transporting vital energy to the organs and the meridian system. 

As the acupuncture points correspond to internal organs, disorders of the organs and associated pain can be relieved by stimulating the points through insertion of needles or moxibustion therapy.

According to traditional Chinese medical theory, illness is caused by exposure to the Six Pernicious Influences disturbances of the Seven Emotional States, exhaustion, over-indulgence in sex and insanitary diet. This section traces the history of human diseases through an examination.

Humans have developed a variety of ways to cope with diseases. In traditional Chinese medicine, problems such as skin abscesses, sores, boils, incision wounds, ulcerated sores, orthopedic traumas, burns and frostbite fall under "external medicine" because the symptoms are manifested externally and are often visible or palpable. 

Bencao, or "materia medica," is the umbrella term for pharmacology in ancient China and can be divided into classes including cao (herbal plants), gu (grains), cai (vegetables), guo (fruits), mu (trees), chong (insects, amphibians and reptiles), lin (fishes) and jie (animals with a shell), as well as 
qin (fowls), shou (beasts), jinshi (metals and minerals), shui (water), tu (earth), huo (fire), fuqi (textiles and tools) and ren (humans).

Throughout history almost every religion has used medicine to promote its faith, and each religion has a distinct view of disease and approaches to treatment. Believers often seek religious guidance to help cope with diseases. 

This section presents medical discourses from Buddhist and Taoist classics, along with archival materials detailing the medical practices of followers of secret religions. These sources demonstrate the role of religion and spirituality in the history of medicine.

People cultivate health to prolong life and stay healthy as they age. Starting in the Song dynasty, the shaping and promotion of the traditional Chinese approach to health cultivation increasingly involved the literati, and by the late Ming dynasty the cultivation of health was being treated as a commodity that could be commercialized, thus taking on a material dimension.

The governments of successive dynasties tended to see medical matters as an integral part of state administration. The government's involvement in medical matters mainly took place in the following areas: setting up medical institutions, compiling medical texts, engaging in disease control, and cracking down on shamans.

In the face of disease, each of the different medical traditions, religious beliefs and cultural systems has its own interpretation of how the human body works. For ages humans have dealt with diseases and plagues of various magnitudes, and left behind for posterity a variety of therapies and recipes.

The National Palace Museum is home to a rich collection of traditional medical texts, and many of which were once part of the Qing imperial collections of books or official compilations; others are rare editions uncovered by late Qing scholars in Japan, acquisitions by the Museum and donations from private collectors. Even today, this collection continues to be a valuable resource for academic research and an inspiration for innovative applications.