| In the historical development of human civilization, epidemic diseases, being acute onset, contagiousness, fast- passing, as well as with high rate of fatality, always grow together with human beings. The prevalence of each disease would cause immeasurable pain and huge loss, both physically and psychologically in humans. In recent years, there appeared more than 30 globally emerging diseases such as AIDS, Legionnaires disease, Ebola disease, Lyme disease, SARS and avian influenza. The outbreak of SARS in China particularly exposed that on one hand, strategic and policy responses shortcomings existed in fighting against epidemic diseases; on the other hand Western medicine felt helpless facing this sudden variation of the virus in terms of prevention and treatment, which were all the important reasons for its spreading. Therefore, it is necessary to develop TCM's potential in epidemic preventions and treatment, based on the idea of TCM epidemic diseases prevention, so as to explore in which possible ways TCM can be used to prevent the occurrence and prevalence, which is of practical significance for us to timely and effectively respond to other serious prevalence and transmission of epidemic diseases.This paper studied the ideas and methods of ancient Chinese epidemic prevention and how these were used in modern application in two parts. During the struggling against epidemic diseases, our ancient physicians accumulated a wealth of experience regarding disease pathogenesis, diseases occurrence and progress as well as prevention and treatment, through constant practice and exploration, and developed a unique concept system, with varied epidemic methods.In ancient society, a variety of factors have led to the occurrence and prevalence of disease, such as low productivity, frequent wars, human's limited ability to resist disasters. The analysis can be divided into the following aspects:social and political factors, geographical natural factors, natural disasters, population and urbanization factors, foreign exchange factors and folk customs. Ancient rulers took a certain amount of prevention measures when facing disease, which achieved certain effects on curbing the incidence and prevalence of diseases. Their measures can be concluded as follows:1. to isolate patient and cultivate medical talents; 2. to inspect the epidemic situations and give free medical service (doctors and drugs) to the poor; 3. to ensure health and bury skeletons; 4. to open the national granary, relieve the people in disaster and to cancel tax. Ancient doctors made great achievement concerning the epidemic prevention in Chinese Medical history, such as the in The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, it states the principle of epidemic prevention as keeping sufficient health qi inside and avoiding pathological qi, which composed of the two keys, healthy qi and evil qi in epidemic prevention. The basic guiding epidemic prevention ideas of ancient doctors can be concluded as follows:1. to comply with the nature; 2. to cultivate the moral character and nourish the nature; 3. to restore the essence and consolidate the basis; 4. to preserve health; 5. prevention with medicine; 6. quarantine and disinfection; 7. to pay attention to hygiene; 8. balance diets; 9:immunization and inoculation. Ancient doctors'methods of preventing epidemics can be concluded as two aspects. For keeping sufficient health qi inside, one should acclimate the change of four seasons and balance yin and yang, regulate mood and eliminate fear, strengthen constitutes and consolidate the basis, take some medicine to help invigorate the deficiency, have vaccination, prevent diseases with acupuncture to benefit the deficiency and purge the excessive fire; for avoiding pathological qi, one should be separated with people who catch evil qi, keep everything clear, have disinfection and desinsection and prevent disease with drugs.In the past 20 years, a variety of factors led to the emergence of many new infectious diseases, namely new infectious diseases. New infectious diseases have features different from the traditional ones, and the foundation for their incidence and prevalence are based on a variety of newly emerging natural and social phenomena. Therefore, in line with the characteristics for the new infectious diseases and epidemiological factors, it is necessary to make some appropriate strategies and measures to protect the safety of people's lives and health from the perspective of government:1. To keep harmony among people, naturel and society; 2. To strengthen publicity and education of the public and training of professionals; 3. To improve emergency response capabilities of the relevant government departments; 4. To strengthen inspection and quarantine of animals and plants and market regulation; 5. To establish infection special policies to prevent disease; 6. To strengthen the monitoring of new infectious diseases; 7. To strengthen strict management of the medical and pharmaceutical additives; 8. To strengthen the research on emerging infectious diseases and vaccine development.Combined with ancient Chinese epidemic prevention ideas, we have obtained a lot of inspiration regarding epidemic prevention. Combined with modern medical thinking of epidemic prevention, we here summarize as follows:1. to take the preventive measures before the occurrence of disease; 2. to prevent diseases in accordance with their differences; 3. to take overall prevention; 4. to integrate Western medicine and TCM; 5. to focus on health preserve; 6. to pay attention to immunization. With guiding from these ideas, TCM epidemic prevention can be applied into three aspects, namely to control origin of infection, to cut off the transmission and to protection of vulnerable populations. Later this paper analyzed SARS, avian flu and H1N1 from the perspective of TCM in line with their pathogenesis, transmission rules and epidemic characteristics. With their characteristics analyzed, the paper put forward proper measures that should be taken.
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