History of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Early practice and the first texts

The government report describes medicine as growing out of people discovering that some plants and animal products relieved ailments. It names the saying "Shennong (Celestial Farmer) tasting a hundred herbs" as characteristic of those years. [1] This is a traditional narrative, not a dated historical record. The same report credits the Xia and Shang dynasties with the discovery of alcohol and the invention of herbal decoction, and says that in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period (770-221 BC) Bian Que set out the four diagnostic methods: looking, listening and smelling, asking, and palpation. [1] We could not check these early attributions against independent sources, so treat them as the tradition's own account.

Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC to AD 220)

This is the period to which the report dates the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), which it calls a framework for TCM, and the Shennong Bencao Jing, an early materia medica. [1] It also places Zhang Zhongjing's Shang Han Za Bing Lun here, a text on febrile and other illnesses and pattern-based treatment. [1] A 2024 review by an acupuncture researcher argues that the Mawangdui silk texts describe moxibustion and channel (meridian) theory and likely reflect knowledge older than the Neijing. [2] Dating of these works is not settled: the sources we read give dates from the Warring States period to Qin-Han. Details are on The Huangdi Neijing and Classical Materia Medica.

From the Jin to the Qing dynasties

The government report also says Hua Tuo (c. 140-208) was "recorded to be" the first to use an anesthetic in surgery. [1] The wording shows the claim rests on records, not on surviving evidence we could examine.

Meeting biomedicine: the 1800s and early 1900s

A historian of Chinese medicine writes that before the 19th century the word for "medicine" covered many schools and practices, and that the term zhongyi (Chinese medicine) first appeared after American missionary doctors arrived in Canton in 1834, as a way to tell local practice from theirs. [4] Early in the 20th century some practitioners explored combining Chinese and Western-style medicine, according to the government report. [1]

In February 1929 Yu Yan, a physician trained in Western medicine in Japan, proposed at a Nanjing health conference to abolish "old medicine". A journal article describes the plan: practitioners could register for a limited period, teaching in old-medicine institutes would be banned, and advertising their services would be prohibited. [5] Practitioners and herb traders organized a national meeting in Shanghai on 17 March 1929, and in December the Nanjing government rescinded the proposed abolition. [5] The article notes that from then on Chinese medicine could not avoid pressure for "scientific reform" and integration with Western medicine. [5]

After 1949: the state organizes TCM

Another historian describes the 1950s: in 1950 "unification of Chinese and Western medicine" became a health work principle, but a 1951 regulation barred Chinese-medicine doctors from prescribing chemically compounded medicines or giving injections without scientific training. [4] In July 1954 Mao Zedong proposed that "Western medicine study Chinese medicine", and in 1956 "integration of Chinese and Western medicine" was proposed as the guiding principle. [4] The China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese-medicine hospitals were founded, and the institutionalization and standardization of the field was completed by 1963, with knowledge recorded in textbooks. [4] More on this period is in TCM in Modern China.

Spread beyond China

The government report says Chinese medicine spread to neighboring countries as early as the Qin and Han period and influenced their own traditional medicines. [6] Those neighbors developed their own systems; see Kampo Medicine and Traditional Korean Medicine. For the present-day picture outside China, read TCM Outside China.

One example of old texts and modern science

The 2015 Nobel Prize committee describes how Tu Youyou, searching for new malaria treatments, screened herbal remedies, then "revisited the ancient literature" for clues that helped her extract artemisinin from Artemisia annua. [7] That is one documented case. It does not show that other traditional remedies work; NCCIH says studies of Chinese herbal products have had mixed results and many were of poor quality. [8] See Artemisinin and Tu Youyou.