Ancient Chinese theoretical resources to explain the causes of diseases are very rich, which reflects how the ancients thought about the relationship between the human body and the heavens and the earth. In this sense, the ancient Chinese concept of disease is not only a medical problem, but also a historical topic. In recent years, the historical community has intervened in the study of the history of medicine, based on the recent public health, health, disease, infectious diseases, bacterial pathogenesis and other issues to do a lot of discussion, but still lack of ancient Chinese disease caused by insects to do the systematic collation, and the traditional classic "worm" has become the late modern people to introduce the bacterial pathogenic theory of the Jinliang, so it is necessary to return to the eve of the conflict and integration of different pathogenic theories of Traditional Chinese and Western medicine. In view of this, this article aims to analyze the relationship between insects, people and diseases in ancient China from a historical perspective, in order to seek lessons from the Fang family.
First, as a worm in the sense of naturalism
The ancients' understanding of "worms", when placed under the knowledge and culture of different historical periods, the meaning is very different, and can be roughly divided into several types of insects in the sense of naturalism, insects as witchcraft, and insects as pathogens. As early as the Classic of Mountains and Seas, there are many references to insects, such as "three hundred miles to the north, the mountain of the gods, which has a devie on it, a white snake under it, and a flying insect", and another example: "Two hundred and thirty miles to the east, the mountain of Rongyu, which has more copper on it, more silver under it, more willows and more willows and moths, and many strange snakes and strange insects in its insects." It can be seen that the snake and the insect appear in the text at the same time, and the image of the worm and the snake is discussed together from the beginning.
The snake in the Classic of Mountains and Seas
According to the Book of Characters, the ancient pronunciation of insects is the same as 虺, "A viper, bo three inches, the head is as big as a finger." Like its recumbent shape, the fineness of things, or rows, or flights, or hairs, or silkworms, or intermediaries, or scales, with insects as elephants, all insects belong from insects. From Xu Shen's reference, it can be seen that the insect is a false, resembling a snake, containing things such as rows, flights, hairs, silkworms, jie, scales, etc., that is, the interpretation of the "Erya", "The general name of the worm in the Shuowen, the naked hair feather scales. ”
Qing Dynasty "Kangxi Dictionary": "Shuowen, Jade, Class, and other books, worms, worms, worms and worms are divided into three parts, distinctly three tones, meanings are also different, the character collection, orthography through the two parts, merged into the worm part, although the meaning of the ancient division is lost, and the reader is easy to check, so the old, if the six books are false, thinking that the worm part is the province of the worm, then the big fallacy is also." ”
That is to say, in the "Explanation of Words", "worm" and "worm" are two words with different sounds, "worm", which refers specifically to a snake, that is, "pit viper". "Worms" refers to insects with feet, and the "Erya" worm interpretation section argues that " there are enough worms, no feet to say the worm ", no foot to say the worm", there is no foot limb to become the standard of insects, cockroaches, and worms, although it is difficult to accurately examine when "worm" is simplified to "worm", and the ancient and modern phonetic changes of "worm", but from the "Erya" catalog, insects coexist with heaven, earth, hills, mountains, water, wood, fish, birds, beasts, animals and other major categories, which indicates that insects are important names for all sentient beings. This understanding also constitutes the textual basis for the existence of insects in ancient Chinese naturalism.
List of worms in Erya
In the Tang Dynasty, insects and cats were the same part, divided into cicadas, flies, mosquitoes, ephemerals, ephemerals, butterflies, fireflies, bats, kowtows, moths, bees, crickets, inchworms, ants, spiders, insects and other suborders, but there was also a practice of summarizing all things in the name of "bird scales and insects", including phoenixes, cranes, chickens, eagles, birds, magpies, geese, parrots, dragons, fish, turtles, cicadas, butterflies, fireflies, etc. It can be seen that the Tang Dynasty did not have a clear boundary for the classification of insects. The Song Dynasty was the prosperous period of ancient Chinese naturalism, when there were two ways to separate all things, namely the gate of grass, trees, flowers and fruits and the door of insects, fish, birds and beasts, as well as the practice of dividing insects into seven categories, and the two parts of insects, which were scales and insects, and the department of disease. In addition, there are birds, beasts, insects, fish, there are also in the name of "miscellaneous insects" to be briefly discussed, and even there are insect gates listed alone, not in line with other categories or separated, divided into ant nests, wall fish, white bats, needs, well frogs, shougong, chickens, silkworms and other suborders. There were no new inventions in the Jin Dynasty, which basically followed the classification method of the Song Dynasty's "Chronicle of Things", not to mention the flower and bamboo tree planting gate and the animal, animal, insect and fish gate.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the works represented by the "Compendium of Materia Medica" were more systematic in the classification of insects, and the relationship between insects and diseases was more clear. The book contains 1,892 species of medicines, of which 106 are insects, called "insects", and has a general order for detail, as follows:
Insects are the microscopic creatures of life, and their classes are very complex, so the word from the three worms will mean. According to the "Record of Examination Workers" cloud, the outer bone and the inner bone, but the line of servants, the line of the line, with the sound of the ring, the sound of the note, the side of the sound, the wing sound, the belly sound, the chest sound, called the genus of small insects. Although its objects are small, they cannot be associated with the Linfeng Ghost Dragon, but they have the shape of feather scales, and the fetal eggs are different from rheumatic metamorphosis. Stupid and energetic, each with its own temperament. Record its merits, and know its poison, so the saints discern it. The tick fan ant oyster, which can be used by feeders, is found in the Book of Rites; the centipede toad scorpion, which can be used in seven doses, is contained in the Book of Fang. Zhou Guan has the Genus of Shu Clan To Remove Poison Clams, Scissors to Remove Silkworms, Grasshoppers to Remove Silkworms, Red Foxes to Remove Wall Tanuki Clams, and Hu Zhuo Clan to Remove Water Worms and Foxes, then the Saints are trivial and careless. Can scholars examine physics without investigating its good and poisonous? Therefore, the set of small insects with meritorious and harmful, for the insect department, where there are one hundred and six kinds, divided into three categories, known as oviparous, metamorphic, and wet.
Li Shizhen believes that insects have the characteristics of "micro" and "multiplicity", so insects and worms can be universal. Compared with the previous books, Li Shi proposed that insects are divided into three categories, namely oviparous, metaplasia, and wet birth, which is completely different from the previous divisions, that is, it is no longer only divided according to the shape of the insect, but reclassified according to the breeding mode of the insect, and made a difference of "merit and harm". However, during this period, there were also people who did not do subdivision, such as Xu Ju's separate insect department and listed sixty-two species. The above is the naturalistic significance of ancient insects, and at the same time, insects are also associated with the bodies of ancient people and become one of the important arguments for explaining the causes.
When the ancients met, they often said a greeting, "Don't come unharmed", this greeting is still widely used today. The so-called sickness did not mean disease at first, but to insects, "sickness, poisonous insects also, like to hurt people." The ancients slept in the grass and asked: No harm. There are beasts in the Great Northern Wilderness, and there are beasts in the Great Wilderness, and the people are sick, and their names are known as Qiye. Often enter the room of the people, the emperor kills them, and the northerners are free of disease, which is said to be unharmed. That is to say, in the ancient period when living by water and grass, the ancients conveyed their concern for the human body by asking each other "unharmed". In the pre-Qin period, Zhao Weihou once asked Qi Envoy, "Is there no harm in the old age?" Is the king also harmless? Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty once practiced with Yin Zhongkan and asked "people are safe and stable, and Bufan is unharmed." "The Romance of Su Shi" also takes carefree illness as a problem. The word chig is the same as thinking of worms, or of beasts, or of carefree disease. The GuangganLu Book combines worry and worms, and the Chronicle of Things merges worry and beast. The meaning of "Guangyun" is extremely clear, and the clouds under the word "Guangyun" are also worried, sick, and insect-eating is also good at eating people's hearts. Under the word cloud beasts such as lions, tigers and leopards and people, are the gods of the unity of the two words. ”
2. Worms in medicine and witchcraft
If the poisonous insects visible to the naked eye were an important basis for the ancients to explain diseases from an early age, then insects as entities and concepts are important theoretical resources for explaining diseases in ancient religions, medicine, witchcraft and other fields. In ancient China, there were insect swelling, insect into the ear, insect epilepsy, insect diarrhea, insect spots, insect accumulation, insect fistula, insect injury, insect heartache, insect disease, insect accumulation abdominal pain, insect scabies, insect stinging, insect toothache, insect disease-like epilepsy, insect abdominal distension, insect thirst, insect pain, insect swelling, insect teeth, insect accumulation menstrual closure, insect tumor, insect vomiting, insect hemorrhoids and other disease names or disease certificate names. In addition, there are a large number of Chinese characters with insect characters as a side and associated with diseases, such as worms and "warts".
"Shuwen Qibu"; "Warts, motion sickness also. From 疒, worm province pronunciation", after the Duan Yu cut annotation, "痋 is the word pain".
"Shennong Materia Medica": "Bai Wei, bitter taste, the main storm stroke body hot limbs full, suddenly do not know people, crazy evil qi, cold and hot acid warts, warm malaria wash, seizures sometimes."
"Tujing Yanyi Materia Medica": "Rhinoceros horn, bitter, sour, salty, slightly cold, non-toxic, the main hundred poisonous insect warts, evil ghosts miasma".
"Lingshu Shangzhi": "When people eat, the worms eat on the top, and the worms eat on the bottom."
The last place is obviously referring to parasitic diseases, and there are many concentrated discussions on parasitic diseases in ancient times, such as Buddhism has the "eighty thousand household insects" theory, and Taoism holds the theory of "three corpses and nine insects". "Three corpses and nine worms" originates from Taoist medicine, believing that the human body and the three corpses and nine worms are born together, "human life is also parasitic to the parents and twins, full of grain essence, is to have three corpses and nine worms in the abdomen of people as a great harm." He often went to the Heavenly Emperor on the day of Gengshen to record the sins of man, recorded every bit, and wanted to destroy the birth of a person, destroy the life of a person, and make people die quickly. That is to say, the three corpses and nine worms recorded the merits and demerits of the "host" and reached the heavens on the day of Gengshen, and the Heavenly Emperor killed and snatched them accordingly.
Taoist medicine believes that the three corpses of the human body are divided into three parts, the upper, middle and lower parts, divided into the main life, food, and color, "the name of the corpse is Peng Ju, and the upper part of the human head is divided, which makes people dark, hairy, bad breath, wrinkled face, and teeth fall." In the middle of the corpse name Peng, in the belly of the person, cut down the five internal organs, less qi and forget more, let people do evil things, eat food, or dream of chaos. The name of the corpse is Peng Jiao, in the human foot, people are harassed by the lower level, the five emotions are surging, and the adultery cannot be forbidden. ”
General general 9 insect subjugation insect, roundworm, caucasian insect, meatworm, lung insect, stomach insect, caterpillar, red insect, caterpillar.
"One is a worm, four inches long; two are white worms, one inch long; four are flesh worms, such as rotten plums; five are lung worms, such as silkworm ants; six are stomach worms, such as shrimp moths; seven are mantises, such as leaflets; eight red worms, such as raw insects; nine worms, black in color, and there are thousands of micro-worms outside the body, as thin as vegetables, the lord of this group of insects."
And it can only be removed by "Shou Gengshen" and "Go to the Three Corpses Charm". Nine insects have intergenerational transmission, in addition to stomach worms, hui worms, meat worms, the remaining six types of insects in the human body have been multiplied six times, there are six generations, each generation of insects caused by different symptoms.
Go to the Three Corpse Charms
In fact, this view of Taoist medicine also influenced the ancient theory of Chinese medicine, Chao Yuanfang believes, "There are three corpses and insects in the human body, and this insect is jealous of blood and evil, can communicate with ghosts, often attract external evils, and harm people." But he also believes that the symptoms caused by the three corpses and nine insects are similar, and divides them into "five corpses", namely the sinking corpse, the ambush corpse, the yin corpse, the cold corpse, the cold corpse, the zombie. From the perspective of etiology, Chao believes that the connection between the corpse worm and the external evil in the body is the root cause of the disease. However, the Song Dynasty's "General Record of Saint Ji" divides the "corpse gate" into four categories: corpses, hidden corpses, flying corpses, and corpse notes, believing that "only the qi of the five corpses, perverted and different, the large rate is dull and silent, the pain is impermanent, and in addition to the five corpses, there is a corpse qi, although each has its own evidence, but the qi is the same as the disease." "Here, both corpse insects and corpse gas become one of the causative factors.
Take the corpse labor (tuberculosis) as an example, "the corpse cold laborer, the spine out of the white worm, or out of the red worm, if the bone steaming labor sweat out, waist and foot pain is not successful, sweating under the feet such as glue paint, the wind and water disease, and take a grain of tea, children innocent, can take half a grain as before the law, there are worms out of the nose, such as linear is effective." In this statement, white worms or red worms actually become the cause of the disease, which is also in line with the statement of three corpses and nine worms. In this case, qi and insects can be transformed into each other, "Qi deficiency and blood impotence are the most indispensable to enter the door of labor, mourning and asking for diseases, and clothes and utensils can be touched by the void." When a woman enters the patient's room, the thoughts of the sick see, then their labor will be infected with the disease, and they will become worms over time. That is to say, the ancients believed that labor qi could be transformed into insects, so it was necessary not only to avoid insects seen by the naked eye, but also to prevent insects from being vaporized.
Of course, the above are all naturally occurring insect diseases, and there are still a large number of records about clams in ancient times, the earliest of which is found in the "Zhou Yi" 墲卦, "蛊, 巽下艮上, just up and down softly down, 蛊元亨, and tianxia zhiye", just on this word, it is actually just a gua name. Later, it is found in the "Zuo Zhuan" contained in the words of the doctor and the doctor, "it is said to be close to the female chamber, and the disease is like a clam", "When the female, the yang is obscure, the adultery is born of the disease of the inner heat and deception", "Yu Wen, the dish worm is a clam, and the gu zhifei is also a clam." In Zhou Yi, women confuse men, the wind falls, so-called ", the clams here refer to diseases infected by near female colors, and the metaplasia relationship between insects and clams has been preliminarily discussed. Later, the "Explanation of The Interpretation of The Text" explains that "the worm in the abdomen is also" and "the worm in the abdomen, that is, the poison of the worm food in the abdomen, enters from the outside, so it is known as the middle." "Combined with the glyphs, the abdomen of the human body is like a vessel, containing poisonous insects that enter from the outside.
The Sui Dynasty medical books contain the method of making "cunning poison", "Where there are several kinds of deceit, all of them are confused qi, people have pretense, take more worms and snakes, store them in utensils, let them eat each other, and only one thing alone is called a deception." Then they will be confused, and they will eat and drink, and they will suffer from people. If it is troubled by him, it will deceive the Lord auspiciously, so the unruly one will do something about it. There are also flying slugs, which come and go for no reason, and gradually resemble ghost qi, and they are heavy. Whoever is sick in the middle of the disease tends to die. Because of its poisonous potential, the cloud is poisonous. Therefore, deliberate planting of deception is forbidden by the law, "the manufacture of animal poison, the sale of poison, the harm to people's lives, each with a common punishment." Wang Kentang of the Ming Dynasty believed that the poison should include snake venom, lizard poison, shrimp poison, moth poison, grass poison, etc., "Whoever enters the village and sees that there is no dust on the roof beam of the people's door, his home will be slurred, and when he is carefully guarded against it, if he has to eat his diet, that is, when he sneaks in at the beginning of the soup, he will collect a piece of dirt in his hand, and eat it as much as possible, but if he buries the dirty things in his hands under the cross road of the people, he will rebel against his own family, and the owner of the clams will come back to ask for it." This kind of expression in this article undoubtedly adds to the color of poisonous witchcraft.
It is worth noting that the "Qing Barnyard Bills", written at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, has a detailed description of the "Southern Tricks", which began with barbarism, and the Gepi people became customary and did not understand culture. Strangers to Fujian and Cantonese often get lost in the cave, die in the middle, and are more prosperous between Zhang and Ting", the types of clams are different, and the names are also different, "Min Yue Ghost; Yue Yue Medicine Ghost; Guangdong West Has Medicine Worm, resembling a chicken clam; Dian Shu has a golden silkworm clam, also known as a food brocade clam. "Wuyue Youcao" contains rice field clams; "Feng's Medical Sayings" contains fish clams, chicken clams, goose clams, sheep clams, cattle clams, dog clams, centipede clams, spider clams, lizard clams, clams, clams, kedou clams, horse locust clams, clams, baby worms, etc." According to the purpose of deception, it can be divided into two categories: First, the affairs of men and women, to deceive people, "the estimation of eastern Guangdong, the widow of Tuzhou in western Guangdong, the ghost wife, and the person who marries also." If you want to return, you will make an offer, three years will be the next three years, and five years will be the next five years, which is called the year-fixing medicine. During the period of sorrow, the hair is swollen and dies; returning as scheduled, the woman is cured by medicine, and she is unharmed. The wife of Tuzhou is proud to have a husband in eastern Guangdong", so there is a proverb: There is a cave in Guangxi, and there is a mountain in Guangdong. Second, plotting to kill merchants and travelers, seeking wealth and killing people, "in the counties of eastern Guangdong, people are miscellaneous and barbaric, and they are often deceived. Those who provoke ghosts can be in power, and when they go out, they will make it light and less, and if they enter, they will make it heavy and more, so as to harm the merchants, and the lord will respect it." Stayers often bring their own licorice to verify the presence of clams. In addition, there are also many deceptions in Central Yunnan, both medicinal and self-generated deceptions, "its Taishi classic test yunnan, and occasionally with the supervision of a certain observation, observation said: "This is easy to see the ear." Wing Day, admonition: "Rise up." "Taishi looks out, like setting off fireworks," said Yu Yunxiu, a close friend, "the things that are poisonous are really close to myths, and there is nothing."
Animal poison inherently can kill people, but its hair is also fast, and it is not left behind. In this sense, poison, a kind of worm used as a witchcraft, is also one of the causes of the ancients' explanation of the disease, and its mysterious color shaped the ancient people's ideological concept of not entering the country.
In fact, in addition to the direct contact between insects and people to cause pain, the combination of insects and wind and qi is also one of the paths. Today's common simplified character "wind" actually prevents us from thinking about the ancient association between insects and wind. The traditional character of the wind is "wind", the middle is actually a worm part, many worm characters do side and the head of the part When it is located in the inner or lower part of the word, it is often added a horizontal or a skim in the upper part of the worm word, such as adding a horizontal to the worm in the worm character, and adding a skim on the worm in the wind word. From the glyph alone, the insect dwells in the wind character, which seems to convey the message of the eight winds, and there must be insects in it. Check the "Explanation of Words" there are clouds, "Wind, eight winds also." The east is known as Ming Shu Wind, the southeast is known as Qing Ming Wind, the south is known as Jing Feng, the southwest is known as Liang Feng, the West is known as Zhang Guan Feng, the northwest is known as Bu Zhou Feng, the north is known as Guang Mo Feng, and the northeast is known as Rong Feng. The eight winds here present the ancient people's cognition of "wind" based on the spatial orientation, and for the complex relationship between insects and wind and qi, Wang Chong's "On Balance" has clouds, "Fu worms, born of wind, Cangjie knows, so fan and insect are wind zigzags." Breathing from the wind, it takes eight days to melt. Raw spring and summer things, or eat grains, or eat grasses. The meaning of insects here and the relationship between insects and wind and qi are self-evident, and this statement has not faded for a long time, and this theory is also continued by Kong Guangsen's Supplement to the Great Dai Li Ji of the Qing Dynasty and Li Daoping's Zhou Yiji Xie Shu.
In short, the snakes and insects that appear in the Classic of Mountains and Seas are actually a natural concept based on the geographical orientation, and the co-location of snakes and insects also affects the image construction of insects. When insects are placed under a broader natural system, the classification and writing of plants, trees, insects, fish, birds and beasts become more meaningful. When insects are associated with humans, insects are given the meaning of etiology, both the daily greeting of "don't come unharmed", the complex theory of three corpses and nine insects becoming sick, and more sinister acts of deliberate deception, and the medical cognition of mutual interaction between insects and qi, so insects, qi and wind are not mutual attacks. The ancients' understanding of disease is a three-dimensional concept of time and space, both ghosts and gods, there are six adulterous evils, and three corpses and nine insects, of course, it is also closely related to diet and living.
In the traditional medical theoretical resources, people and insects are accompanied by a relationship, represented by the "three corpses and nine insects" theory, and only when insects are related to evil qi will cause disease. The other is the insect outside the body, which refers to the concept of classification in the sense of naturalism, and also refers to the poison or the poisonous insect that invades the human body from the outside. In short, disease caused by insects is an important way for the ancients to understand the relationship between the human body, disease and the environment. It should be pointed out that when the theory of bacterial pathogenesis entered China in the middle and late 19th century, the theory of bacterial pathogenesis was also just beginning in the West at the same time, and it was also translated as a "new knowledge" in late Qing China, which involved the generation of the concept of "bacteria".
When the theory of bacterial pathogenesis is introduced, people often understand the "microorganisms" or bacteria under the microscope from two paths, one is the grass, wood, insects, fish, birds, and animals in ancient naturalism, "there are dripping water on the glass, using the microscope to look at the shadow wall, seeing thousands of scorpion worms, swimming in it, dripping vinegar is the same." Fleas are bigger than wheels, thicker than giant pythons, and spectacles too! "The first is the worms in ancient medicine and witchcraft," the great achievements of Western medical scientists recently, in the examination of micro-insects as things, is the source of all diseases in life." Therefore, there are many of their races, who try to cultivate and Xu Cha to kill them, so that they can cure their diseases and heal them. What kind of disease belongs to what kind of insect, fixed as a certainty, and the source of the insect, or from inferior animals to cause infection into human ears, such as plague is also. "The former is concrete, the latter is abstract, so it will present the understanding of bacteria at the time, and the first reaction is to introduce the concept of insects."
In his article "The Theory of Bacteria", Zhang Taiyan started from the concepts of insects, clams, and bacteria, and then elaborated on the theory that bacteria cause disease. In this sense, in addition to factors such as epidemic qi, ghosts and gods, witchcraft, etc., the theoretical resources caused by insects in ancient times provide us with other ways to understand the concept of human epidemics in the recent past, and the historical plot is far more diverse and complex than we think, and must be left for discussion in a separate article later.
Source: Chinese Medicine Culture Magazine, No. 4, 2016
Title: "An Ancient Chinese Theory of Disease Caused by Insects"
Author: Ji Linghui
Changqing