Ge Hong's contribution to Taoism and his influence on Chinese medicine

There is a poem in the JinShu Ge Hong Biography that says:

"Naokawa Youqia, poor and happy.

Contains Vansven, Forever Passing on the Flood Algae. ”

Ge Hong was the most important medical scientist in China during the Qin and Han dynasties and the Two Jin Dynasties. The "Youqia" mentioned here in the Book of Jin refers to the meaning of brilliant thinking and extensive knowledge, and integration. "Zai Fan Siwen" refers to his works such as "Biography of Liang Official", "Hermit Biography", "Biography of Immortals", "Biography of Guo Wen", and collation of "Miscellaneous Records of Xijing". "Hongzao" is an evaluation of his writings, literary and medical value, believing that they are rich in content and can be passed on to the world forever. The "Biography of Ge Hong" of the Book of Jin also says: "All the writings are exquisite in right and wrong, and only then are they rich in zhang." This can be said to summarize Ge Hong's theory and its outstanding life evaluation.

One

Among the five major religions in China, Taoism is the only religion founded by Chinese and is a true indigenous religion. Taoism and Taoism sometimes call Taoism Taoism Taoism, Huang Lao. But strictly speaking, the two are not exactly the same thing. Mr. Qian Mu said: "The pre-Qin Daoists are mainly the two old families. These two people can be said to be the originators of Chinese Taoist thought and the suzerainty of Chinese Taoist thought. In the later Taoist writings, their ideological system can no longer exceed the scope of the two books of Zhuang Lao, nor can it exceed the realm of the two books of Zhuang Lao. (History of Chinese Political Thought) From the pre-Qin dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties, it was the period of the formation and establishment of Taoism.

Ge Hong lived during this period (283-363). Ge Hong was a physician and a Taoist. The Analects record that when Confucius traveled around the world, he met some "escapist" (Xianwen) people whom he called "hermits" ("micro-sons"). These hermits once ridiculed Confucius, believing that Confucius's efforts to save the world were futile. The representative of these hermits is Yang Zhu. Yang Zhu lived between Mozi (c. 479 BC – c. 381 BC) and Mencius (c. 371 BC – c. 289 BC). Mencius said: "The words of Yang Zhu and Mo Zhai are in the world" (Mencius Knee Wen Gongxia). In the Taoist work "Liezi", there is an article entitled "Yang Zhu".

There are similar ideas in Lao Tzu. For example: "If you think of yourself as the world, if you can send the world; Love for the world, if it can support the world. This passage is to say that in the world, a person who values his own body more than the world can give the world to him; Whoever loves himself more than he loves the world can entrust the world to him. Another example is "Name and Body: Who's Kissing?" Body and goods, how much?" Both show the idea of rebirth of light things. The Taoist idea is to avoid harm all your life.

Ge Hong's era is an extremely important historical period in the history of China's development. Especially since the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, Taoist thought has been accumulated for a long time and began to revive and flourish during this period. Since Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty "deposed a hundred families and exalted Confucianism alone," Confucianism has flourished and ruled all fields such as political ideology. However, in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, with the increasingly decadent political environment and frequent natural disasters, the authority of "heaven and man induction" theology gradually wavered and slowly declined, and many famous studies of law, including Taoist thought, began to break free from the suppression of Confucian thought and embarked on revitalization. At that time, the intellectual celebrities Wang Fu, Cui Yuan, Zhong Changtong and others got rid of the shackles of theology and set off a powerful wave of social criticism, which contributed to the revival of Mingfa thought, which rose rapidly, and Taoist thought, which was different from the revival style of Mingfa, appeared very soothing and peaceful, as if it was a spring rain moisturizer, there was no sound, but it was everywhere and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The revival of Daoist thought in the late Eastern Han Dynasty unfolded at the level of philosophy of life. In Zhang Heng's "Si Xuan Fu", "Gui Tian Fu", and "Skeleton Fu", there is obviously the existence and feelings of Lao Zhuang's thoughts. His "Si Xuan Fu" says: "Mo Wuwei condenses his ambitions, and his benevolence and righteousness are shaken." If you don't leave your home and know the world, why bother with it? "The heavens and the earth have not been left for a long time, and the qing of the river is only worried." May the distance be self-amusement, up and down the impermanent poor six districts. Transcendence leaps and leaps to the world, and the gods do whatever they want. Heaven can't step up Xianfuxi, and the oak boat quietly does not fly. Song Qiao Gao can leave? The knot makes the heart carry. Hui Zhi Shuo came from Xuan Chen, and got what I asked for! Here, the Confucian idea of taking the world as its own responsibility and actively entering the WTO to make meritorious achievements has been rubbed into self-cultivation and self-entertainment, transcending worldly feelings, which are the realms of life advocated by later Taoists.

Another important manifestation of Taoist thought in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was to provide a theoretical basis for the later emergence and development of Taoism. Ge Hong's "Baopuzi" established a more solid theoretical foundation for the construction of the Taoist system. At the same time, Ge Hong also transformed and transformed the Taoist doctrine of noble and gentle but selfish, and saw Pu Baosu into the way of immortality and immortality, opening up a new path for Taoist moral norms and TCM health propositions.

The title of Ge Hong's book "Baopuzi" may have originated from the two sentences of Lao Tzu, "See the simplicity of the plain, less selfish and widowed". The Book of Si consists of eight volumes, with 20 inner chapters, dealing with the Immortal Tuna Fu Zhen Mian ; The outer chapters are 50 articles, discussing the gains and losses of current politics and the denial of personnel affairs. As a whole, it summarizes the Wei and Jin Taoist theory of immortals and establishes the Taoist theory of alchemy. It is this alchemy theory that opened the history of chemical alchemy in the world and the precedent of Chinese herbal medicine.

Ge Hong believes that change is objective and absolute. From this he came to the conclusion that the class of matter is variable. "Baopuzi Inner Chapter: Yellow and White" pushes the scope of change of objects very widely. In Ge Hong's view, change has no limit and no scope. Things will naturally change from one type to another, such as mountains to abysses, deep valleys to hills, and so on. Change can be mastered and controlled by people. By intervening in natural changes through subjective initiative, these changes can be used by people. People can make things change according to their wishes in a certain way. Everything is changing, everything can change, this is not only the Taoist view of material change, but also Lao Tzu's "movement of the anti-Tao." (Lao Tzu, chapter 40) The basic idea.

Everything is in motion, only when there is movement can it change, and only when there is change can it develop. Everything in nature and human society, developing to one extreme, will turn against the other. Movement change is not only the normal of physiology, but also a process of continuous development and change of human diseases. Ge Hong's idea of change was originally mainly to justify his religious beliefs, but it was used to explain the possibility of human feathering into immortals and refining lead and mercury into immortal elixirs, and to explain the changes in the divine powers of immortals, although they were a mixture of philosophy, medicine, and religious beliefs, but also reflected the differences between religious philosophy and medical philosophy.

Two

A person's immortality begins with longevity, and longevity means less or no disease. The "Baopuzi Zaying" points out: "Those who were Taoists in the early days of ancient times did not practice medicine at the same time to save the near future. "Ge Hong is in line with the idea of saving himself and saving others with medical skills and assisting in the cultivation of immortals, and has persisted for many years, so he has studied a lot in medicine and has made extraordinary historical achievements.

Because of its concern for the human subject, TCM has only drawn support from the ultimate Taoist care. Therefore, "Healer, the flow of the Tao also." If we say that the development of Chinese medicine was formed by absorbing Taoist theory, then the Reflected Taoism has become the object of study of medical philosophy on solving the problem of ultimate care.

While keen on the study of Taoism, Ge Hong diligently studied medicine, and he compiled many medical books, especially the one hundred volumes of the "Yuhan Fang", which although it has been lost and the content is difficult to know, it is obviously a huge work that integrates medical experience. At the same time, Ge Hong considered that some of the works of preparation, "can not be poor in all kinds of diseases, but also have many precious medicines", for "poor family wild shops", it is difficult to buy, so on the basis of a hundred volumes of "Jade Letter Fang", carefully compiled into three volumes of "Elbow Reserve Emergency Fang" (later generations were compiled into eight volumes). This book not only makes a correct description of the treatment methods, various etiology and symptoms of acute infectious diseases, organ chronic diseases and surgical, pediatric, ophthalmic and six animal diseases in the history of Chinese medicine, but also lays the foundation for Ge Hong's unshakable lofty status in the history of Chinese medicine.

The content of "Emergency Preparation" includes various diseases such as internal medicine, surgical emergencies, infectious fever, parasitic diseases, facial features, gynecology, pediatrics and so on. The original intention of the author was to collect the prescriptions of Zhang Zhongjing, Hua Tuo and other former famous doctors and the emergency prescription medicines prepared by the Zhou, Gan, Tang and Ruan families. Tao Hongjing, who adapted it to him, added a lot of content. Judging from today's "Elbow Reserve Emergency Fang", it is also true that there are contents of prescription medicines deleted in books such as Bian Que Fa, Chang Sang Jun Fang, Zhong Jing Fang, Hua Tuo Fa, Fan Wang Fang, and Xiao Pin.

Ge Hong's medical contributions are many, many of them pioneering. In particular, the description of malaria types, symptoms and treatment in "Behind the Elbow" and the collation of the "classification and consolidation" of drugs and the "corresponding drug evidence" have great enlightenment for the "Legal Theory" in the important work of Tao Hongjing," an important work of later generations, "Notes on the Collected Works of Materia Medica", which contains the division of malaria into warm abuse, miasma abuse, and labor abuse in volume III of "Behind the Elbow", with a total of more than 30 prescriptions, especially "Artemisia annua Fang".

Ge Hong first proposed the concept of "strong qi", believing that various acute infectious diseases are not caused by ghosts and gods, but by a kind of "strong qi" in nature that is different from the six obscene qi such as "wind, cold, heat, wet and dry fire". Qiangworm disease was also first documented. The disease is an acute infectious disease spread by the larvae of the scrub worm (chigger mite) as a vector. It was not until the 1920s that the pathogen of scrub worm disease was gradually discovered abroad as a "rickettsia" that was much smaller than bacteria.

At the same time, the popularity of smallpox was first recorded. "Behind the Elbow" accurately and in detail describes the typical symptoms of smallpox, and names it "sores", believed to have been introduced to the Central Plains by captives, and for the first time proposed a prescription for treatment. Rabies was also documented for the first time, and it was proposed to apply rabies brain compresses to the wounds of the bitten to treat rabies "with poison". Ge Hong proposed this therapeutic idea, which is the precursor of artificial immunization. Ge Hong was also the first to record tuberculosis, which not only clearly recorded the symptoms and pathogenesis of tuberculosis, but also pointed out that it was contagious, calling it "autopsy".

In "Behind the Elbow", Ge Hong created a variety of emergency treatment techniques, which greatly improved the effect of emergency treatment, including artificial respiration, gastric lavage, drowning rescue method, abdominal puncture and water release method, urinary catheterization, enema and so on. The most important thing, "artemisia annua in one hand, stain with two liters of water, twist the juice, and serve it." "Inspiring future generations, in September 2011, contemporary scientists led by Tu Youyou won the International Medical Award for this highly effective, fast-acting and low-toxic antimalarial drug, saving countless lives around the world." Thus, Ge Hong's name is engraved on the honor wall of the history of human civilization and the history of Chinese medicine, and it will always shine brightly. (Lu Xiangzhi, China Association for the Promotion of Traditional Chinese Medicine Research)

Source: Guangming Network