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History Of Medicine in China: When Medicine Took An Alternative Path

At that time, evolutionary biology was in eclipse. Many scientists thought that Lord Kelvin’s arguments about the rate of the earth’s cooling proved Darwin wrong (Kelvin 1862). Others recognized that Darwin’s theory of transmission by gemmules was inconsistent with his theory of natural selection (Richards 1987). Natural selection was not re-incorporated into biology until its underpinnings in population genetics were developed in the early to middle years of the 20th century (Fisher 1930). Even then, those foundations emphasized muta- tions and genetic variations, not the shaping of complex adaptations by selection, a field that was only developed by evolutionary and behavioral ecologists in the 1970s and later. Those insights into trait evolution are. | Copyright 2004 by MJM MJM 2004 8 79-84 79 CROSSROADS WHERE MEDICINE AND THE HUMANITIES MEET History of Medicine in China When Medicine Took an Alternative Path Francis F. Hong INTRODUCTION Chinese legend has it that in the dawn of human civilization Heaven sent sage-kings to the midst of men teaching them how to survive in the hostile world. The beginning of medicine was associated with one or another of these sage-kings. Shen Nong for example learned the properties of each plant by tasting them thus discovering the use of herbs as drugs. Since then medicine flourished. The development of medicine took a different path in China as it did elsewhere in the world. It devised a system in which circulation of qi is paramount and changes of yin yang dictate the health of the individual 6 . It was not until the 18th century that Chinese gradually adopted modern medicine. While it is not within the scope of this paper to examine the reasons for these changes it intends to summarize the evolvement of medicine throughout Chinese history. THE BEGINNING OF MEDICINE It is impossible to decipher when medicine started taking shape but ancient myths seem to trace its beginning to the Stone Age when Chinese converted from hunter-gatherers to farmers. By then they had accumulated enough knowledge to use nature to their advantage. Shen Nong s story of tasting herbs for example reflected how man gradually learned to recognize the properties of plants after innumerable experimentation 4 . The first archeological evidence comes from the time of Shang during the Bronze Age 16th - 11th century BC . In Shang era ruins scholars found particles of seeds still used extensively in Chinese medicine and stone-crafted instruments resembling surgical tools 4 . They also found the first medical records on oracle bones used by To whom correspondence should be addressed Francis Hong email francis.hong@elf.mcgill.ca shamans to communicate with the spiritual world Felt . It was a time when man believed