Volume 58 · Issue 03 · 1940

The Sino-Japanese war has, in a way, given us an unusual opportunity of acquiring many rare Chinese medical books and articles of historical interest. Owing to the disturbed conditions,people were compelled to dispose of their collections. a number of these articles appeared in During the last few years, quite the curio stores and second-hand book shops of Shanghai. Autographs of famous physicians,however,are extremely scarce and despite constant search only three such specimens have so far been secured. A description of them may be of interest to students of medical history in China.

That celebrated physicians are deified and worshipped in temples as a tradition is only true in China. Chinese writers also praise the medical profession and compare the merits of a good doctor to that of a good premier. There are ten well-known physicians worshipped in the temples of medicine in China. If a Chinese patient has been cured by a doctor, he usually says, by way of praise that his doctor is the eleventh celebrated physician. However, as the source of information in the Chinese medical literature about the ten celebrities is not easily accessible, therefore, it is deemed desirable to give a brief note concerning them.

Just who in Chinese mythology can rank as the Chinese God of Medicine? This question is not easy to answer. In going through the North Kiangsu area, where Chinese medical and mythological lore is well developed, one sees several temples, altars and idols dedicated to various medicine gods. Probably none is more commonly worshipped in drug shops of this part of the country than Shen Nung (神農). The physicians of the scholarly type, however, seem to prefer LLi Shun Yang (吕純�? as their patron saint. There are several other names mentioned in Chinese medical lore of this district as gods of medicine and are even today worshipped there, by Chinese old school physicians. Fu Hsi (伏羲), Shen Nung(神農), Huang Ti (黄帝) Hua T’o (華陀), Chang Chung Ching (张仲�?, Sun Ssu Mao (孫思邈), Pien Ch'iao (扁鵲) are all mentioned in North Kiangsti as gods of medicine. Some of these are gods of specialists as some of their names indicate. Thus Chang Chung Ching is the god of medicine, Toh Wang(毒王) is the god of poison, Yen Kwang P'usa (眼光菩薩) is the god of eyesight.

Beriberi has been known in China since time immemorial. The disease was first noted in one of the earliest writings, the Su Wen (素問) which is claimed to have been written by the Emperor "Huang Ti"（黄帝） in the year 2697 B.C. Later writings of more authentic date such as the Tso Chuan (左傅) and Shih Hsiao Ya (詩小�? which made reference to this disease, were written about 344 B.C. Thus beriberi was known in China much earlier than in the European countries where Strabo and Dion Cassius were said to have first noted the disease among the Roman soldiers in 24 B.C. The first European physician to describe beriberi was Jacobus Bontius in his book entitled "de Medicine Indorum" published in the year 1642 A.D. This writer attributes the cause of beriberi to "a thick and sluggish humor derived from the nocturnal dampness" very much similar to the much earlier writings of Chinese physicians such as those by Ch'ao Yuan Fang (巢元�? of the Sui dynasty (589 A.D.) and those of Sun Ssu Mao (孫思邈) of the T'ang dynasty (618 A.D.). Subsequent to these there were many other writings pertaining to beriberi in Chinese medical literature. In the following pages it is proposed to discuss briefly some of the early Chinese medical writings from sources available nowadays.

The discovery of the vitamins is a very important event in the medical history of the early twentieth century.

Ancient physicians in China had a saying: "With stomach one lives, without it one dies". This servers as an evidence that among digestive organs the stomach was considered as of great importance by our ancestors. In medical literature the words "spleen" and "stomach" were often employed synonymously.

In two previous publications (15 and 16), the present authors have given translations, with commentaries, of selections from old Chinese medical literature dealing with a variety of helminthological subjects. The present publication presents selections concerning in festation by lice, crab-lice, bedbugs and cases of phthiriasis. As previously, the examples have been taken from the large collection of old Chinese medical books in theLibrary of the Peiping Union Medical College and may beregarded as representative. Just as was the case with publications on helminth infections, discussions on the present subject were found scattered in medical works of various categories. There seem to have been no special pubIications on ecto-parasites. Compared with the very considerable amount of old literature on helminthological questions,the number of references to the ecto-parasites under discussion is comparatively small. This may be explained by the fact that on the one hand, many diseases were formerly attributed to worms, and on the other hand, nothing was known of the important role of insects as transmitters of diseases. Furthermore, Pediculus, Phthirus and Cimex were, in China as in the West, probably of such frequent occurrence that many were thoroughly familiar with them from personal experience and knew how to dealwith them. It may also be that some authors who, though disposed to discuss in their works at great length, interesting and complicated diseases may consider it somewhat below their dignity to write about such vulgar and commonplace topics as lice and bedbugs.

With her large territory and population; her climate which ranges in temperature from severe cold to subtropic heat; with her varied physiography consisting of high plateaus, deserts, plains, delta and river basins, China offers unusual opportunities for helminthological investigation and this is true not only from the medical and veterinary standpoints but also from the purely zoological standpoint.