Page 232 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 225

Hua-to operates on Goan-di

The standard work on all diseases and remedies is the Ben-cao gang-mu (the
‘Encyclopaedia of Plants and Roots’) the core material of which was written down about
two thousand years ago. Over the centuries it was extended and amended until a
definitive edition was produced under the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The work contains
a full description of all plants, their properties and their use in medicine, and Western
researchers – botanists, doctors and pharmaceutical firms – have also turned to it for
information. It is noteworthy that, when the basic material was being collected,
paediatricians, specialists in women’s diseases, and even horse doctors, were already
active in China.

Characteristic of Chinese medicine is the absence of surgery. The traditional view was
that the human body as provided by one’s parents should not be mutilated in any way.
Men who were castrated to become eunuchs, kept the parts removed and had them buried
with them at death. Nor was circumcision known in China till about fifty years ago, again
because of a strong belief in the inviolability of the body as given.
More than two thousand years ago, attempts were made to provide Chinese medicine
with a theoretical basis, by correlating it with the system of the five elements or
‘states of being’ (wu xing). Illness ensued when the balance of forces in the body was not
in equilibrium with those in the environment. Correct use of the adequate medicine could
restore the lost harmony, and the patient got better. To take a simple example: a cold
could be cured by taking a medicine that contained warmth. Due balance between
warmth and cold, between dryness and moistness, is of universal significance over the
whole corpus of Chinese medicine. Certain groups in South China like to eat dog-meat.
But, since the dog is correlated with ‘hot’, it cannot be eaten in summer. As soon as the
cold weather returns, dogs vanish from the streets to reappear on menus in restaurants.