Category Archives: Chinese History

Hilariously Horrible Classical Chinese Medicine Seizures Treatment

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The earliest known Chinese Medical texts are from the Ma Wang Dui tombs.  They have been translated and published by Donald Harper as _Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts_.  I’ve written a few posts about it, including this introductory review, a post on the earliest mentions of acupuncture meridians and associated treatment functions, coverage of how these early texts describe and use Aconite/Monkshood (one of the most powerful and toxic herbs in the world), and noting the amazing revelation that the first textual mention of Moxibustion instructs to roll a cannabis joint with mugwort leaves.

Early Chinese Medical Manuscripts: The Mawangdui Medical Literature by Donald Harper

Early Chinese Medical Manuscripts: The Mawangdui Medical Literature by Donald Harper

There are many more fascinating treatments recorded in these texts I haven’t mentioned.  Not many of them appear useful in a modern clinical context, but all are important as part of the history of Chinese medicine and magic.

It’s difficult to choose the most amazingly horrible recommendation from this book.  Here’s a runner-up:

Bloody hemorrhoid.  Boil thoroughly one male rat in urine. Hot-press with the vapor.  (Harper, Page 275)

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Gold Bars and Hell Banknotes

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I wandered into The Monkey King‘s warehouse up in Portland, Oregon last weekend.  They have a great selection of Chinese reproduction furniture and art.  They also have a nice variety of ghost money and Feng Shui ritual items.  I picked up some “gold bars”:

Gold for Ghosts

My last post suggested that many Taoist traditions using gold had been forgotten.  Not entirely.  There are many references to gold in the living folk traditions.  The basic idea is that you can burn items (or fake items made of paper) and they will transfer over to your departed relatives, who will be able to enjoy a finer life on the other side.  Also, they’ll work to intervene on your behalf.  Certain lunar phases are easier for making deposits into the Hell Bank. Continue reading →

The Yellow and White: Gold and Silver as top Yang and Yin in Chinese Taoist alchemical medicine

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Ko Hung, On the Gold Medicine

Summary:  Ko Hung is regarded as the most important Taoist medical alchemist by most scholars of Chinese history.  He wrote that medicines made of gold and silver are better than any plant could ever be, but warned that their methods were secret, only passed down orally after initiations.  Being orally-transmitted secrets, gold and silver are conspicuously absent from the Chinese herb texts.  Modern medicine does use gold and silver, and colloidal gold and silver are available as supplements.  Their safety and probable efficacy is explored.

The Yellow and the White

Chen’s History of Chinese Medical Science

Chen’s History of Chinese Medical Science is a curious rare bilingual paperback from Hong Yen Hsu’s Oriental Healing Arts Institute, published 1977.  It details about 30 of the most important historical figures in Chinese Medicine.  Ko Hung is the subject of the 11th chapter, titles “The First Pharmacist in the 4th Century.”

Ko Hung (also spelled Ge Hong in more modern Pinyin) wrote extensively.  His “Inner Chapters” under his pen name “The Master Who Embraces Simplicity” are fascinating accounts of early chemistry, folklore, and medicine.  Chen’s history reports Ko Hung as “Father of Chemistry.”  Indeed, the Nei Pien is apparently the earliest documentation of distilled alcohol.  It also reports results from early metallurgical experiments, being the first recorded production of certain alloys.

His pioneer work in chemistry in the 3rd century was truly remarkable.  In his _Stories of Pao-pu-tzu_ there are three volumes on “Golden Pills”, “Elixirs of Life”, and “The Yellow and the White” are of importance [sic].  ”Golden Pills” deals with refining of elixirs with inorganic substances.  ”Elixirs of Life” discusses the five herbs that prolong life.  And “The Yellow and the White” describes the use of gold and silver.  (Chen’s History, page 37) Continue reading →

Ate Mushrooms, Laughing Incessantly? Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet will stop it!

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Mycology has been a study of mine since before I chose Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as a profession.  Medicinal mushrooms such as Reishi and Shiitake are commonly used in TCM and have some scientifically supported health benefits.  But looking at Taoist tales of the Mushroom of Immortality and Spiritual Fungus (Ling Zhi), it is easy to suspect that they knew of a Shroom with more than immune-boosting effects.

Chinese herbal literature is actually pretty vague about mushrooms.  The early herbal called The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica (Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing) told of 5 mushrooms, one for each color of the Five Elements (which of course benefit the symbolically associated organ).  With so many thousands of fungi, from the deadly toxic to the very tasty, one would hope to see better descriptions in the classical Chinese Medical literature.  I’ve gathered references over the years, and am starting my thread on Chinese medicinal and magic mushrooms with this post revealing the ancient formula to stop incessant laughing after eating mushrooms…

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James Randi Researches Chinese “Psi” and visits the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine

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Chinese research is apparently getting better.  In fact, China is taking first place, ahead of the USA and UK, in publishing scientific papers.  With the amount of people China has and the emphasis on being good students, it is hard to see anything stopping China from leading the scientific world other than bad methodology.  I suspect most Chinese scientists have recognized the importance of quality in research and are working to repair the poor reputation that Chinese research has developed.  Having read plenty of abstracts on Chinese medicine research, I’m well aware of the low quality that has given TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) research a bad name.  As an American acupuncturist who is determined to provide safe, effective, and responsible treatment in my clinic, I don’t feel the need to hide the fact of research problems in the TCM field.  On the contrary, being honest and open about the problems and limitations in my field has won me more respect from intelligent patients, doctors, and scholarly acupuncturists than just parroting the Party line about TCM.

So how bad was Chinese research?  In pouring through dozens of abstracts on external Qi Gong energy healing looking for convincing evidence that the ability to project or detect a human energy field has been verified in decent research, the results were stunningly disappointing.  Often it’s hard to learn about the actual research methods used from the studies written by the researchers themselves.  This is where James Randi’s trip to China with CSICOP (The Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, now just CSI, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) takes the cake.  I know plenty of psychics and New Agers hiss when they hear these names, but the best way to shame the skeptics would be to rigorously prove psychic abilities in a controlled setting and then take Randi’s million dollar prize (see my recent book review about _Randi’s Prize_) or expose them as closed-minded frauds.  Unfortunately for paranormalists, there are far more documented frauds and closed minds on the psychic and religious side of the fence.

As I was reviewing _Randi’s Prize: What sceptics say about the paranormal, why they are wrong and why it matters_, I bought _The Hundredth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal:  A Skeptical Inquirer Collection_, edited by Kendrick Frazier.

The Hundredth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal

Along with a nice introductory essay by science hero Carl Sagan, there are thought-provoking pieces by Martin Gardner, University of Oregon professor Ray Hyman, and other usual suspects from the skeptical movement.  An unexpected gem was the chapter “Testing Psi in China:  Visit by a CSICOP Delegation” which details a 1988 trip by a group including James Randi.  It really hit home when they visited the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as that esteemed TCM school is the publisher of several textbooks I used in my acupuncture education.  I’ve recently been shaking my head over some of the acupuncture point functions given in _Acupuncture:  A Comprehensive Text_ put out by the Shanghai College of TCM and translated by Dan Bensky and John O’Connor, which was a good warmup for the head shaking _The Hundredth Monkey_ produced.

Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text

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Alchemical sleight-of-hand and Chinese Porcelain: Johann Böttger, 1701

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Sleight-of-hand magic trickery is the most likely explanation for ancient demonstrations which appeared to turn lead into gold; I’ve been working on a post in my head about this for some time.  Golden alloys are a more technical option.  Unfortunately, turning base metals into real gold is the least likely option.  History, once more, is stranger and more useful than fiction.  My dear wife brought home another fun book in the “History of Science” genre, Sam Kean’s _The Disappearing Spoon:  And Other True Tales of Madness, love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements_.

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Here’s the story tying together several threads which lead back to China:

In 1701, a braggadocian teenager named Johann Fiedrich Böttger, ecstatic at the crowd he’d rallied with a few white lies, pulled out two silver coins for a magic show.  After he waved his hands and performed chemical voodoo on them, the silver pieces “disappeared,” and a single gold piece materialized in their place.  It was the most convincing display of alchemy the locals had ever seen.  Böttger thought his reputation was set, and unfortunately it was.

Rumors about Böttger inevitably reached the king of Poland, Augustus the Strong, who arrested the young alchemist and locked him, Rumpelstiltskin-like, in a castle to spin gold for the king’s realm.  Obviously, Böttger couldn’t deliver on this demand, and after a few futile experiments, this harmless liar, still quite young, found himself a candidate for hanging. Continue reading →

True Deficiencies of Chinese Medicine: Thiamine & Beriberi, Part 2

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I previously wrote a post called “Thiamine, Beriberi, and Arsenic in Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet” where I presenting convincing evidence that an important Chinese Medical classic written about 2000 years ago both effectively treated and toxically exacerbated beriberi.  To recap, beriberi is a deficiency of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) which can be fatal.  Thiamine helps keep cell walls strong, especially in the capillaries.  As beriberi develops, fluid seeps out of the weakened capillaries, causing the feet to swell, the lungs to fill with fluid, and ultimately the heart to fail.  Thiamine is also essential for the nervous system.  Memory failure and cognitive problems, including delusions, hallucinations, loss of motor control, and involuntary rapid eye movements can all be combined with the extreme fatigue of beriberi.  Some people get more heart and vein problems (wet beriberi) and others get more neurological symptoms (dry beriberi).

Chronic malnutrition has been a problem in China for all of history.  Even in the 1950s,

Prescriptions from the Golden Chamber/Cabinet

millions of people starved to death in a politically induced famine (see _Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine_ by Jasper Becker).  We know beyond doubt that beriberi was an issue in ancient China; the symptom groups are clearly described in _Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet_ by Zhang Zhong Jing, circa 200 CE.  Looking at the formulas associated with those symptoms, I found that at least 2 of the herbs recommended in significant doses are in the top 10 list of plants containing thiamine.  These herbs were Ephedra (Ma Huang) and Bean Sprouts (Phaseolus vulgaris).

Ma Huang/ Ephedra

If the diet does contain thiamine, beriberi can still be caused by high arsenic levels.  Arsenic specifically deactivates thiamine as one of its toxic actions.  Unfortunately, treatments associated with beriberi in the _Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet_ also include arsenic, both internally and as a fumigant.  My main conclusion from the first post was that the Classical Chinese Medicine doctors were both helping and exacerbating beriberi.

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