Saratoga Springs TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine has been around for thousands of years. Although the first recorded history of TCM dates back over 2,000 years, it is believed that the origins of TCM go back more than 5,000 years. Bear in mind that, apart from the recorded documents much of what is said about the origins of Chinese medicine is more legend than history.
According to the legend the origins of traditional Chinese medicine is traced back to the top three legendary emperors/mythical rulers: Fu Xi, Shen Nong, and Huang Di. Historians believe that Shen Nong and Fu Xi were early tribal leaders. Fu Xi was a cultural hero who developed the trigrams of Yi Jing (I Ching) or Book of Changes. Shen Nong, the legendary emperor who lived 5000 years ago is hailed as the “Divine Cultivator”/”Divine Farmer” by the Chinese people because he is attributed as the founder of herbal medicine, and taught people how to farm. In order to determine the nature of different herbal medicines, Shen Nong sampled various kinds of plants, ingesting them himself for to test and analyse their individual effects. According to the ancient texts, Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs including 70 toxic substances in a single day, in order to get rid of people’s pain form illness. As there were no written records, it is said that the discoveries of Shen Nong was passed down verbally from generation to generation.
The first written documentation on traditional Chinese medicine is the Hung-Di Nei-Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Cannon of Internal Medicine). Hung-Di Nei-Jing is the oldest medical textbook in the world; different opinions date the book back to between 800 BCE and 200 BCE. Yellow Emperor’s Cannon of Internal Medicine lays a primary foundation for the theories of Chinese medicine which extensively summarizes and systematizes the previous experience of treatment and theories of medicine, such as the meridian theory, as well as many other issues, including, physiology, pathology, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, acupuncture and moxibustion, tuina, etc.
Some of the most specific discoveries of Chinese medicine were made during the Zhou dynasty, including the theoretical foundations of yin and yang, the five elements, the pathogenic factors of external environment as a cause of disease and further understanding of the meridians of acupuncture. The basic theories of acupuncture were established and stone needles became obsolete, being replaced by metal needles. Bian Que, a famous doctor/physician at the time of the spring and Autumn Warring States Period, was the first man in the world to use the pulse for diagnosis.
Bian Que brings Prince “back” to life
One of the most well know story is talks about how Bian Que succeeded in curing the crown prince of the Kingdom of Guo of his fatal illness. According to the legend, the prince of Gua was very ill and as he lay dying, the court physician could do nothing to help. One version of this story has it that Bian Que was summoned to treat the prince, however when he arrived at the palace he found the crown prince being prepared for the funeral. Despite the funeral arrangements, Bian Que requested examining the prince. His examination confirmed his suspicion that the prince had actually gone into a deep coma. He gave the prince acupuncture treatment to retrieve him and then applied compresses soaked in a decoction of herbs. Within hours of Bian Que’s arrival, the prince was able to get his feet. The prince was then prescribed boiled herbal compounds to be taken for twenty days, which helped him to fully recover.
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