Chinese Folk Medicine

    A Study of the Shan-hai Ching

    By

    J o h n W m . S chiffele r

    The Shan-hai ching (山海経〉or “The Classic of the Mountains and

    Seas” is a geographical gazetteer of ancient China and a catalogue of the

    natural and supernatural fauna and flora allegedly dating back to the

    Eastern Chou dynasty (東周朝，771-256 B.C.) and spanning a period

    of perhaps a millennium through the first century of the North-South

    dynasties (南北朝，A.D. 304-589). It is also a repository of strange

    spirits, curious folkways, medical beliefs, and other related oral and

    written traditions of earlier origins, perhaps even beginning with the

    Shang-Yen dynasty (商殷朝，c . 1500-1027 B.C.).1 “ Now when we

    look at what is said or herbs and minerals in this treatise, we find, rather

    surprisingly perhaps, that the idea of prevention rather than cure is

    outstandingly present. The Shan Hai Ching usually recommends

    particular drugs, not for curing diseases but for preventing their onset.

    No less than sixty items of this kind are stated to promote health and

    to prevent illness.”2

    In many ways, this classic bears some similarity in content and

    theme to the Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places，although it is

    not commonly associated with being a part of the Chinese medical

    corpus as the latter is in oreek medicine. For, like this ancient Greek

    treatise, The Classic of the Mountains and Seas is based upon a philo-

    sophical and scientific premise of nature—the Chinese Weltanschauung?

    The Chinese quest for a harmonious union between themselves and

    their biophysical and socioanthropological environment gave rise to

    1 . Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient Chinay 3rd ed. (New Haven

    and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 444.

    2. Joseph Needham, Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West (Cambridge:

    At the University Press, 1970), p. 350.42 JOHN WM. SCHIFFELER

    such a “world concept” in which people and their way of reasoning

    were conceived of as being an integral part of the cosmos and intrinsic-

    ally interjoined with the spiritual, physical, and moral ‘influences.，3

    “From early times，” according to Professor Clarence J. Glacken,“there have been two types of environmental theory, one based on

    physiology (such as the theory of the humors) and one on geographical

    position; both are in the Hippocratic corpus. In general, the environ-

    mental theories based on physiology have evolved from the notion

    of health and disease as indicating a balance or imbalance respectively

    of the humors, and from empirical observations such as the advantages

    of certain town or house sites, situation with relation to altitude (possi-

    bly because high places were above malarial swamps) or nearness to

    water, and to certain prevailing winds. . . . The history of environmental

    theories is distinct from that of the idea of design because the main

    stimulus of the former came originally from medicine，although it is

    true that adaptation of life to the physical environment is implicit in

    the idea of an orderly and harmonious nature.”4 Thus, we find in

    The Classic of the Mountains and Seas and in Airs ......