Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: In the third century before the current era BCE, devastating epidemics claimed the lives of thousands throughout the Chinese empire.The poet Cao Zhi recorded the calamity by writing that 'from each room came wails and cries of sorrow' (Quoted in Kuriyama, 2000).Some three hundred years later on the other side of the world, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 664 CE noted that 'the sun eclipsed on the 5th before the Nones of May, and in the same year there was great pestilence in the island of Britain' (Shrewsbury, 1949).However, while much has been written on the socio-economic and religio-philosophical impact of epidemic disease on the apparent frailty of human existence, medical historiography has not always addressed the issue of how changing disease patterns may have influenced therapeutic strategies.The theme of this paper will focus on this aspect of medical history by considering how disease manifestations as perceived by physicians of Chinese medicine, have helped shape medical notions and determine therapeutic response.
Author: WM Cochran
Language: English
Topic: History of Medicine Studies
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2234063282