Chinese medicine aims to restore psychophysical harmony through different techniques: natural remedies from pharmacology, use of plants, tonics, massages, acupuncture, digital pressure, Qigong, moxibustion, cupping and rebalancing nutrition.
Its purpose is to prolong life and its quality, thus bringing health.
The therapy consists in the energetic rebalancing between yin and yang, in the various aspects of the person.
Diagnosis is made by listening to the pulse which reveals the state of the organs and bowels of the whole organism and its systems; through the gaze and the eyes, the appearance of the skin and tongue, as well as the person’s way of expressing and moving; in summary all its aspects.
The most successful Chinese doctor was the one who managed to keep his patients healthy throughout their lives: only in this way did he perceive his earnings.
If, on the other hand, the patients fell ill, the doctor, having failed in his task, was obliged to treat them until the state of health was restored without receiving a salary.
The first medical practices of Chinese civilization were almost certainly the prerogative of the shamans: they took care of religious, cultural, divination and medical activities.
The same ideogram that corresponds to the meaning of medicine “Yi” draws its origin from the work of the shamans.
The first medical knowledge began to organize itself during the dynasty period of the Shang dynasty when the origin of diseases began to be defined and their causes were indicated:
- “heavenly” causes that act directly
- causes deriving from the evil influence of the deceased and ancestors, defined as Gui.
Over the centuries, the various Dynasties and schools of thought (Moists, Confusions, Sophists, Legalists, Naturalists, Buddhists, Taoists, etc.) have put together the accumulated medical knowledge which was then definitively systematized in the Han period (2nd century BC- 2nd century AD) with the publication of the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine and Emperor Shen Nong’s Classic of Materia Medica.
Huang Di established the general principles and contributed to the development of acupuncture-moxibustion, while Shen Nong established the first knowledge of dietetics and herbal medicine: healing properties of herbs, medicinal plants as well as the study of poisons and antidotes.
“Dao produces the One,
One produces Two,
Due produces Three,
Three produces ten thousand beings.
In their empty breath
they mix
harmony”
“Dao produces the One,
One produces Two,
Due produces Three,
Three produces ten thousand beings.
In their empty breath
they mix
harmony”
