Medicine -- the Beneficent Vocation

By staff reporter HUO JIANYING

A Song (960-1279) bronze model marked with 666 acupuncture points, used for acupuncture practice.

In ancient times, medical practitioners were China's most exalted Angels in White, their lofty office of preserving human life inspiring a reverence otherwise accorded only to deities.

Celebrated doctors were actually apotheosized and worshiped in temples across the nation. In the King of Medicine Temple shrine in Anguo City, Hebei Province, the likenesses of ten renowned doctors. They include Pi Tong, Bian Que, Hua Tuo, Zhang Zhongjing, Huangfu Mi and Sun Simiao, all known for their supreme medical skills and prominent contributions to Chinese medicine.

Shen Nong, Martyr to Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine originated in the knowledge of nature and the help it could provide in fighting disease by the Chinese in their daily lives and work. Its prehistoric founder is believed to have been Shen Nong.

According to legend, the first Chinese ancestors were known as the Three Emperors Fu Xi(1), Shen Nong and Nü Wa(2). Shen Nong had the greatest historical impact on the Chinese people.

By learning how to distinguish wild vegetables and fruits from weeds, and to grow crops, Shen Nong kept at bay two of the greatest threats to humankind's future -- hunger and disease. This knowledge he passed on to his fellows. In his search for medicinal wort, Shen Nong personally sampled diverse flora to test their effect. It is said he was once poisoned 72 times in a single day, and that he eventually died after ingesting a toxic herb.

Although there is no tangible proof of Shen Nong's existence, he has been revered and honored by the Chinese people for centuries. The ancient Chinese deified image of him was that of an ox's head and a human body. His birthplace is believed to be the wooded mountain Shennongjia (Shennong shelf) in Hubei Province, so named because according to legend he built a hut there in which to store herbs.

An ancient painting of a horned Shen Nong, herbs in his mouth.

Shengnongjia is a green sanctum where a huge variety of flora, including 2,000 medicinal species, grows. It was in this fertile land that Shen Nong: "Tasted plants in order to tell cereals from grass, and taught the people what he had learned; tasted plants to tell herbs from grass, and saved people's lives."

Practicing Medicine to Help the Community 

The traditional Chinese concept of medicine is that it is the art of benevolence, as endorsed by Confucianism. Medical practitioners are accordingly expected to treat their patients with a loving heart, in the manner of a true gentleman.

In ancient paintings doctors are depicted with gourds, containers of medicine, hanging from the waist, hence the term "hanging the gourd for the good of the community."  There were originally two categories of doctor: clinical and itinerant, the former being the majority. Traditional Chinese medicine stores also served as clinics where, after making their diagnoses, doctors wrote out prescriptions with which the patients went to the counter to get their medicine. Such doctors might pay home visits if so required. This practice carried on in China for thousands of years, and does today in some regions.

Some traditional drugstores enjoy a high reputation for "reliable products, reasonable prices, and honesty." At the Hu Qingyu Store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, one of its wooden plaques reads "Guard against Fraud," owner Hu Xueyan's intention being to caution himself and his staff against cheating customers.

Chinese ancestors believed that good doctors should be possessed of both medical expertise and a strong sense of social responsibility. To them, a doctor's work had a crucial bearing on the national economy and people's livelihood. There was a saying popular among intellectuals: "If one cannot be a good minister, one should be a good doctor," the idea being that competent ministers and able doctors are both vital to their country and people.  

A Liao (907-1125) painting of a herb collector at work.

A Model of Myriad Ages

There have been many celebrated doctors throughout Chinese history excelling in both medicine and ethics who made significant contributions to the survival and development of the Chinese people. One of them, Sun Simiao (581-682), was accorded the title "King of Medicine" by the Tang Emperor Taizong.

Talented and diligent from childhood onwards, Sun Simiao studied Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, but was particularly accomplished at medicine. His interest in healing can be attributed to a childhood plagued by illness, when frequent medical consultations drove his family to the verge of bankruptcy. The illness he suffered and the financial burden it caused made Sun decide to be a doctor. On achieving his goal, Sun's reputation reached the imperial court. Tang emperors Taizong and Gaozong both offered him official posts, but Sun refused, preferring to concentrate on his medical research.

Apart from consulting written medical works, Sun also learned from his peers, paying personal visits to doctors in all other parts of China. Sun was utterly committed to his work. He has been quoted as saying: "Human life is of the utmost value, surpassing by far that of gold." He made strict demands of himself and his students, his dictum being: "Regard every patient, rich or poor, as a blood relation, and treat their distress as your own. Tend to them wholeheartedly under all conditions, by dayor night in winter or summer, and no matter how hungry, thirsty or tired you may be."

Sun recorded his clinical experience in internal medicine, surgery, gynecology and pediatrics gained from his pathological, therapeutic, medicinal and prescriptive practice in his Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold. Thirty years later he wrote another book, A Supplement to the Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold. Both are classics of traditional Chinese medicine and seminal medical textbooks, used by physicians throughout the following generations.

Sun's achievements in medicine are diverse. He was the founder of Chinese gynecology and pediatrics, and advocated holistic therapy. Sun's capacity for innovation enabled him to learn from doctors of preceding generations. He supplemented and modified old medical works, and was never bound by convention. Sun died at the age of 101, a rare longevity even by today's standards.

Beijing's century-old drugstore Tongrentang maintains the tradition of having doctors on site to make diagnoses.

New Challenges

According to traditional Chinese medicine, disease is caused by imbalances in the good and bad qi (vital energy). Good qi assures the normal physiological functioning of the body, while bad qi causes ailments. When good qi is weak, bad qi takes its opportunity to invade the body and cause illness. The emphasis within traditional Chinese medicine is, therefore, on building up immunity. This hinges on the state of the constitution, spirit, living environment, nutrition and other related factors. Enhancing good qi and expelling bad is a fundamental TCM principle.

The four methods of TCM diagnosis are observation, auscultation (listening) and olfaction (the act of smelling), interrogation, and pulse feeling and palpation. In order to make a diagnosis, TCM doctors observe the patient's complexion, tongue, and manner, listen to their voice and breathing, smell the odor they emit, ask pertinent questions, and feel their pulse. It is amazing how the cause and condition of a disease can be established by feeling the changes in an individual's pulse, but it is only experienced TCM doctors that have the skill to gauge such pulsative nuances.

According to TCM theory, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) is a febrile disease, caused by an external evil whose key symptom is persistent fever. On external evil, namely virulent bacteria and viruses, entering the human body, internal heat accumulates to a dangerous level, exuding toxins that harm the internal organs. Practitioners of TCM therefore prescribe to SARS patients medicine that heightens the human immune system, reduces heat, and eliminates toxins. It has now been established that a combination of Western and traditional Chinese medicine is effective in combating SARS.

Having been applied for thousands of years, traditional Chinese medicine has cured many diseases, and is acknowledged as equally efficacious in treating new diseases in contemporary times.  

Notes:  (1). Fu Xi, legendary Chinese ruler of the prehistoric period, credited with introducing farming, fishing and animal husbandry to the Chinese people, and also reputed to have discovered the Eight Diagrams and devised Chinese writing. (2). Nü Wa, legendary Goddess, sister and wife of Fu Xi. In order to repair damage to heaven, she melted stones of five colors to mend its gaps and cracks, and cut the feet off a giant turtle to prop up heaven from where it had fallen to earth.