1School of Chinese Medicine & Graduate institute of Chinese Medicine, China Medical
University, Taichung, Taiwan
2College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
3Division of Chinese Acupuncture Medicine, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine,
China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
4Henry Yin Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine
5Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China
Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
【Summary】
Objective: Plague is a common disease between rodents and humans. It mainly relies on fleas to transmit the pathogen, Yersinia pestis to different individuals. It has a very long history and has affected the development of human civilization numerous times. However, there have been many plagues in China’s history, some of which are related to the Plague itself. However, the appearance of the term “plague” dates back to Wu Cunfu’s “Plastic Plague Law” in 1891. The study aims to explore the history of Plague in Chinese medicine by referring to and study the classics.
Methods: We screen the disease name “Plague” in the Classics of Traditional Chinese medicine with two research methods. We first search the disease names related to rats and whether the symptoms are consistent with modern plague directly. We also search through the common symptoms of plague corresponding to the analysis of disease name with similar symptoms in the classics. After identifying these terms, we then compare the influence of Western medicine on Chinese medicine after the introduction of Western medicine terms.
Results: From the Classics of Traditional Chinese Medicine, we found that the terms for the disease included the term “rat”, and the past disease name of the plague may be “rat fistula”, etc. If we classify from the symptoms, the terms such as “pimple plague”, diseases referred to as “big head plague”, “neck plague” and “peach stone plague” all include symptoms of neck swelling or obvious lumps on the body. These symptoms can correspond to the redness and swelling of lymph nodes caused by bubonic plague, so we think these diseases are related and was named despite there being no direct mention of rats or Yersinia Pestis which might be the ancient name for the plague. It may be the ancient name for the plague. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, the South China Plague also led to the exchange of Chinese and Western medicine between China in the late Qing Dynasty and Taiwan under Japanese rule. With the emergence of the modern term “Plague”, combined with the observations of current microbiology, the formation and description of the definitions for plague in Chinese and Western medicine, these terms have been unified and became the term that we are now familiar.
Conclusion: “The plague” is a terrifying infectious disease in both the Eastern and the Western medicine. In an era where the source of its infection was unknown, traditional physicians used its external symptoms as the source of its disease name. With the development of the medicine, people gradually discovered the term “plague” only appeared when the source of the disease came from rats. With the discovery of Yersinia pestis, it unifying of the term in both traditional and modern
252.3 「鼠疫」传统医学古籍中鼠疫病名之沿革
