A medical system developed and practiced continuously in China for over two thousand years, organized around concepts of qi, yin-yang balance and the five phases, using herbal formulas, acupuncture, moxibustion and tui na massage. Its foundational text, the Huangdi Neijing, is traditionally attributed to the legendary Yellow Emperor but was compiled by multiple unknown authors over an extended period. In 2019 the World Health Organization included a supplementary chapter on traditional medicine conditions, drawing on Chinese, Japanese and Korean classification systems, in ICD-11, a decision some scientists have publicly argued risks lending unwarranted legitimacy to unproven theoretical concepts such as meridians and qi.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodTraditionally dated from the legendary Yellow Emperor; most twentieth-century scholarship placed its foundational text, the Huangdi Neijing, between the late Warring States period and the early Han dynasty, but newer archaeological finds have shifted the burden of proof toward a later Han-dynasty-or-after dating for most of the received text. 1 Older historiography dated the Huangdi Neijing's core to the Warring States period (475 to 221 BCE); more recent scholarship based on excavated manuscripts argues most of the received text is later, from the mid-first century BCE or after. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Tu Youyou discovered artemisinin, the basis of modern artemisinin combination therapies, by systematically reviewing traditional Chinese medicine texts.
Malaria, Conditions Tu Youyou was inspired by a traditional Chinese medicine recipe attributed to Ge Hong, circa 340 CE, in isolating artemisinin as an antimalarial.
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