Preparing for the post-antibiotic era: A Critical edition of the Ao Shi Shang Han Jin Jing Lu

All of you who have been following my career over the last few years, probably already have a copy of my “Gold Mirrors and Tongue Reflections” in your collection. My original research started in 2004, as a direct response to the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003. The main idea was to look back through the history of Chinese medicine, and seek realistic solutions for a hypothetical post-antibiotic era, and learn from everything that has worked in historical attacks of pestilence.

Of course, it is understood that in today’s world, the advancements in medicine mean that there are many solutions for dealing with epidemics, through the development of antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines.

But if what we have learned from SARS is an indicator, every now and then there will be a new virus that will be just a little too strong, and will spread just a little too fast, and get out of control just a little before the WHO and the goverments can respond.

Just imagine a world where a virus needs to be aggressively treated with steroids, and its sequela will last for many years, affecting your ability to work, play and live a regular/normal life. That's exactly what happened with the SARS virus, just before China managed to contain it in the mid-2003.

Hopefully, this will never be the case again, but I believe it's more reassuring looking into the future with a plan B, through examining the clinical experiences of the past.

Back in 2004, as a Master’s Degree Research Candidate I attended Prof. Liang Rong’s classes on the Ao Shi Shang Han Jin Jing Lu and the Shang Han She Jian.

In 2014, she invited me to co-author a critical edition of the Ao Shi Shang Han Jin Jing Lu, as a blueprint for others to teach her class after her retirement.

If you have been to any of my lectures, you probably understand the immense importance of looking at the tongue when dealing with infectious disease and epidemics.

Anyway, back to today. This afternoon, Liang and I, went to the Library of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences to access several rare tongue diagnosis manuscripts. Some of the books we handled were burned, others had stamps from the Japanese occupation or the Manchukuo State, others had pages torn out, ripped in half, and restored back together. I somewhat felt that I witnessed the entire recent history of China through a lens of its surviving rare manuscripts.

We were not allowed to take photos of any of the rare documents. But I took a photo with Prof. Liang for remembering todays explorations.

Comments

How to explain Chinese medicine to your patients

Most new patients at the hospital, regularly ask for an explanation of Chinese medicine , so that they understand how the treatment works. In the United States, the religious, or those with a background in science are often very suspicious of a system that is being frequently advertised as the product of vague eastern practices , or is surrounded by mystery and/or encompassing near occult methods. Many of my acupuncture students, sometimes also find it difficult to come up with a clear definition that doesn’t include the keywords: qi, energies, yin and yang, five elements , and 5000 years of TCM history . An attempt to explain it as a method of using needles to stimulate “channels and meridians” , or using herbs to access the internal organs according to ancient experiences of the Chinese people, again doesn’t sound scientifically convincing. From my experiences in a hospital setting, when the religious or t...

Historical traumatology and making wooden splints at the hospital

I t was back in 2018, and I was still working at the Sports Trauma Hospital in Guangzhou, China. That day, a young gentleman comes to the clinic with a martial arts injury. Physical examination/palpation of the limb and also an x-ray revealed a fractured ulna. Typically, in these types of situations, the standard of care at the hospital, required that the patient moves to the inpatient department for further evaluation, processing and to await surgery. During the surgery, the specialist would open a small incision, realign the bone and then secure it in place with pins or metal implants. However, this approach is not always necessary. In the not-so-distant past, for a simple fracture of the ulna with less than 50% displacement and less than 10% angulation, a simple cast and plenty of rest would be sufficient. In any case, the patient outright refused surgery and casting. He simply asked that we use traditional bone-setting to realign the bone, and then secure it in place with wood...

The "Chinese Medicine and Culture" to be indexed in ESCI

Last week it was announced that the "Chinese Medicine and Culture" is to be indexed in ESCI, and become discoverable on the Web of Science. CMC will receive its first Impact Factor (IF) in 2025, and all articles published after 2022 will be counted towards the author's h-index. --- I have been involved with CMC since its launch in 2018, having being appointed as Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member from the very beginning. I think this is a great achievement for Chinese Medicine. The CMC is the first TCM Humanities publication to achieve such a status. - In March, Charlie Buck and I were guest editors in chief for a historical issue on the global cross cultural integration of TCM in the west, which made an enormous impact on the TCM world in China and abroad.

Navigating through the sea of medicine

Search This Blog