1Graduate Institute of Chinese Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine,China Medical Univ.,
Taichung, Taiwan
2Research Centre for Medical Literature & History, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical
Univ., Taichung, Taiwan
3Dept. of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
【Summary】
The TCM literature can be seen as part of a textual tradition which guides clinical practice, while other excavated archaeological texts have no relevance,and therefore can be relegated to archival literature. GE, Hong(Chinese:葛洪),a well-known physician for his interest in alchemy, taoism, and techniques of longevity. His famous medical book is Zhou-Hou-Fang. This GE’ s book title isusually translated as Handy Therapies for Emergencies. This book has never been translated into English. There are lots of medical texts contain many knowledge in traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)field. This book is one of them. Dr. Tu You-You won the 2015 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, she was inspired by Zhou-Hou-Fang. However, there are also lots of acupunctural contents that people neglected. This paper aims to find the value in acupuncture of the book. The eight volume book Zhou-Hou-Fang contains the main medical thoughts of GE. There are 95 articles of moxibustion(95 条灸方)and 6 articles of acupuncture(6 条针方). GE thought that moxibustion treatment method is much more convenient than acupuncture. Besides, he used an area of section in human body instead of acupuncture points to locate the treatment point. His concept is trying to find the easy way for everyone. He paid attentions on acupuncture point area (not precise acu-point) in four extremities of body, for letting people use trying acupuncture & moxibustion easily. Furthermore, GE gave up Five Elements theory(五行理论)and Bowel-and-Visceral theory(脏腑理论). He only emphasized the utility of acu-points rather than theoretical explanation in acupunctural field. Acupuncture is a commonly used treatment method in clinical use. It is the stimulation of acu-points involving penetration with thin mental needles and their subsequent manipulation. We can find many characteristics of acupuncture in classical TCM literature.