ASIAN
MEDICINE
The healing arts in Asia have had a long and complex history. In several of the major Asian cultures, forms of medicine involved elaborate theories encoded in multivolume series of texts. Such systems are now referred to as traditional medicine.
India
Throughout much of their history, the Indians came into contact with the Persians, Greeks, and Chinese, with whom they exchanged information. About 900 © the Ayurveda, written in India, combined descriptions of disease with information on herbs and magic. The first great Hindu
physician known, Charaka, practiced about 1000 ©. Susruta, in the 5th
century ¥, noted the relationship of malaria to mosquitoes and of plague to rats, knew of more than 700 medicinal plants, and described more than 100 surgical instruments. He treated fractures, removed tumors and kidney stones, and delivered babies by Caesarian section.
China
The Nei Jing (Nei Ching, or Book of Medicine of the Yellow Emperor), probably written in the 3d century ©,
describes human anatomy,
including the circulation of the blood. Much of the treatment at that time was based on the
yin and
yang principle; that is, the balance between active and passive, hot and cold, male and female. The chief role of a Chinese physician was to restore the harmony between yin and yang in a patient. The Chinese also developed massage and invented acupuncture and immunization against smallpox. The physician Hua To, in 300 ©, pioneered the use of anesthesia and performed abdominal surgery, including spleen removal.
The Bencao Gang Mu (Pen T'saokang-mu), begun in the 3d or 4th century ¥ and completed in the 16th century, describes about 1,000 drugs, including croton oil, opium, rhubarb, iron, and ephedrine, all of which have been used in modern times. The pinnacle of Chinese medicine was reached during the reign of Emperor Qianlong (Ch'ien-lung), when all medical information was compiled in a 40-volume encyclopedia, The Golden Mirror of Medicine (1743). Soon after, European ideas began to be introduced, and modern and traditional medicine came to be practiced simultaneously.
Japan
Little is known of Japanese medicine before the 7th century ¥, when Chinese influence began to dominate medical practice. In the 1600s Western medicine was introduced by Portuguese missionaries. After Commodore Perry established contact, Japan rapidly advanced in medicine and science, and in the 20th century it became the equal of any nation.
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