| The term"plague"refers to a group of diseases that are extremely contagious and can result in large-scale epidemics.Different understandings of the epidemic emerged as a result of disparities in doctor cognition in previous dynasties,forming a history of shifts in epidemic cognition.This study examines the breadth,concept,disease name,classification,etiology and pathogenesis,treatment approach,and prescription of the plague from the perspectives of different historical periods and clinicians,using metaphoric cognition as a tool.When the naked eye was utilized as a means of perception in ancient times,it was sometimes impossible to see physiological and pathological changes in the human body,as well as the status of microorganisms in the human body’s living state.We can grasp comparatively abstract,microscopic,and unfamiliar things from some vivid,macroscopic,and familiar things by seeing and studying natural or macroscopic things.From a historical standpoint,the plague’s cognition has primarily gone through two stages of cognitive transformation.Witch doctors were of the same origin from early primordial society to the Warring States period,and ancestor worship and belief in ghosts and gods dominated the majority ideology at the time.People frequently associate unintelligible but powerful and mystical natural phenomena with their imagined "ghosts and gods." Because of its unknown causes,identical symptoms,and deadly conditions,the plague is known as the"plague ghost." "Disease,the meaning of being enslaved," says the release name.Ghosts have enslaved it." "Diseases are also ghosts," says "Jade Particles:Skull Department."With the progression of history,in the latter part of the Warring States period,with time,witch doctors became divided into the later stages of the Warring States Period.The understanding of the disease is improving as medicine progresses.It progressively evolved from the initial metaphor of terror and awe of ghosts and gods to adopting macroscopic social processes and natural phenomena to comprehend.According to the existing literature,this paper sorts out the metaphor types of ancient people’s cognition of the occurrence of epidemic diseases.① "Plague is like enslaved labor" In ancient my country,the feudal social system dominated.Peasants were exploited by feudal rulers for a long time,and in addition to paying rent and taxes,they were also forced to engage in a variety of enslaved labor.Taking Qin as an example,the corvee service was very heavy,and everyone had to serve.Sometimes due to emergencies,the levy was very urgent.The characteristics of these macroscopic social things are very similar to the plague.Therefore,the ancients often used slave labor as a metaphor for the plague.That is,"The Correct Interpretation of the Difficult Scripture":"The plague of the plague,the meaning of being enslaved,is like being enslaved to labor." "The Warm Plague Theory" also records:"Plague,everyone is infected,just like enslaved labor,everyone is equal,but the radicals and radicals are replaced,and the connotation is the same." That is to say,the plague has the characteristics of "everyone is sick,the disease is abrupt,the disease is strong,and the disease is severe",which is the same as the characteristics of enslaved labor.②"Plague is similar to war." War can be found at any era of human development.And sickness is an unavoidable part of everyone’s existence.People can’t help but think about the scene of fighting against the enemy every time we fight the disease.A plague is a disease that affects people from all over the world.The conflict between the human body and the external environment,or "illness," as well as the disease’s powerful disease-causing qualities,may contribute to why people use war to understand and recognize the pathogenesis relationship.In light of the foregoing,Wang Shixiong’s "Revised Cholera Theory" once had a magnificent exposition:"Medicine is like the art of war;the commander must study the enemy’s situation,just as the doctor must observe the patient’s condition." Similarly,when people understand the situation,they may educate management.When a judge understands the facts of the case,they can tell what is right and what is incorrect.When they grasp the situation of the enemy,they can defeat the enemy.In the same way,if you have a detailed grasp of the disease,you can treat the plague and reverse the outcome of the disease." In the expression of pathogenesis in traditional Chinese medicine,we often see such expressions as "struggle between righteousness and evil","evil conquers righteousness","cold evil invades the lung","evil hides the membrane" and "closes the door and hits the enemy".Such claims are a series of claims that use war as a metaphor for disease.The principles of traditional Chinese medicine treatment also correspond to the above metaphors of etiology and pathogenesis.Due to the strong contagiousness of the disease,with the help of the metaphor of war,this battle is often equivalent to a human defense battle.Based on this,to minimize the consumption and damage caused by the epidemic virus to the human body,with the help of Wu Jutong’s statement on the above cognition,That is to say,"Treatment of foreign diseases is like the art of war.Soldiers are quick and flexible,the foreign pathogens are removed and the aftermath is carefully handled.The sooner the disease is removed,the less pain caused by the disease." Wu Youke also put forward a method for treating the plague,"the evil must be removed as soon as possible,the patient will not be critically ill,and will not be particularly passive,and it will be easy to recover after recovery."From this,the metaphorical cognition of multiple methods of treating the plague based on war strategy is derived.③"Plague is like fire" From the point of view of nature,due to the characteristics of natural fire,which burns and destroys things violently and rapidly,and the flame rises and burns,it is similar to the common symptoms of epidemic diseases,which are fever and ulceration,rapid onset and spread,and symptoms of the head,face,and throat.Therefore,the ancient people’s discussions on the incidence,pathogenesis,and treatment of epidemic diseases are almost all based on the metaphor of "fire".④"Plague Environmental Metaphor" According to the research of modern science,the pathogen of epidemic disease is a certain virus,bacteria,and other microorganisms,while the ancients of traditional Chinese medicine did not have this cognitive concept,but an analogy between man and nature.With the help of natural climate,human syndrome characteristics and traditional Chinese medicine attribute,such as cold,hot,warm,and cool.Based on the above methods,traditional Chinese medicine has made indelible achievements in the prevention,treatment,and control of epidemic diseases in China’s thousands of years of history.Therefore,the author unifies the above cognition to the perspective of "the view of the internal and external environment of the human body",unifies the cognition of "disease qi"and the characteristics of the environment,and uses the characteristics of the environment to understand the characteristics of the plague.The classification of epidemic diseases in Chinese medicine differs between the ancient and modern perceptions.The ancient cognitive point of view,firstly,is that the heaven and man correspond to each other,the abnormal climatic characteristics of the four seasons correspond to the disease evidence in the human body,the plague disease is divided into"green tendon traction,red pulse save,yellow flesh follow,white gas depression,black bone temperature";secondly,according to the different properties of cold and temperature classification of the plague disease,and the special symptoms of the plague as a separate kind of plague The second is to classify plague diseases according to their different properties of cold and warmth and to treat plague with special symptoms as a separate type of plague.Modern medicine classifies infectious diseases from the perspective of microorganisms,taking into account the route of transmission and the degree of harm.From the point of view of transmission causing epidemics,plague diseases transmitted by the respiratory tract,such as the mouth and nose,and related to the lung system are more likely to cause widespread epidemics than infectious diseases transmitted by the digestive tract and sex.By analyzing the characteristics of plague symptoms in nine categories of Chinese medicine:dry cholera,pox(measles,smallpox),warm poison(big-headed plague,toad plague,mumps,hairy cholera,spotted evidence),epidemic throat(rotten throat cholera,diphtheria),cholera and dysentery,malaria,plague,syphilis,and consumption,we found that the ancient perception of symptoms was often combined with the metaphorical perception of the characteristics of everyday things.Different medical practitioners have different perspectives on the perception of plague,and therefore,the leading ideas on the disease mechanism and treatment of epidemics may also vary.From the perspective of mainly studying plague diseases or having special views on epidemic diseases,the author selected six medical doctors,namely,Pang Anshi,Wu Youxing,Yang Xuan,Yu Lin,Wang Shixiong,and Dai Tianzhang,and analyzed their academic thoughts on epidemic diseases from the standpoint of metaphorical cognition;at the same time,the academic views of non-epidemic disease experts who have made outstanding contributions to epidemic diseases or epidemic diseases were synthesized.The types of metaphors involved here are nature metaphor,animal metaphor,life metaphor,and environment metaphor.Wu Youxing used the "sun,moon,stars,insects,fish,birds and beasts" that can be seen in nature to have a wide variety,and analogous to the invisible "various kinds of poisonous gas of plagues",which also have different types and properties;With the common in life"snake scorpion detoxifies centipede poison,cat meat cures rat’s collapse" "everything has its own control,such as cat making mice,like mice making elephants"."Plague gas",which is a metaphor for different attributes,may be suppressed by things restrained by its attributes,The above cognition provides a source of cognition for traditional Chinese medicine to treat plague diseases with the help of the four qi and five flavors and the characteristics of the meridians to which the medicine belongs.With the help of "like a bird nesting in a nest,like a beast hiding in a cave",it is a metaphor for the characteristics of the epidemic "evil hiding in the membrane".And with the help of metaphorical cognitive inference of war,the reason may be related to the depth of the invasion of the human body and the strength of the human body,and the emergence of disease and the rise and fall of the body’s resistance.In terms of treatment methods,Wu used the phenomenon of "spooning the soup in the pot repeatedly to reduce the heat so that the water does not boil,it is better to directly remove the firewood from the bottom of the pot" in daily cooking to metaphorize the fecal blockage when the disease occurs.For fever or high fever caused by the intestinal tract,it is advisable to use laxative to relieve heat,rather than the treatment of acrid cooling and clearing heat.Wu also used the metaphor of the human body as a container.When "the back orifice of the container is blocked,the front orifice of the container will not flow in" and "birds bound by their feet cannot fly",which are used as metaphors when the plague appears.When "the human body is blocked and cannot sweat",dredging the qi and blood inside the human body and clearing the bowels of the gastrointestinal tract will help to better solve the treatment of sweating.Yang Xuan relies on the molting of cicadas and silkworms in nature.The molting of cicadas is light and rises,and those who fly are easy to rise,while those of rhubarb and turmeric are easy to fall.It is used to metaphorize the meaning of this prescription named "Lifting Powder".And when the plague is "internal stagnation of heat in the human body",it is advisable to adopt the treatment method of regulating the rise and fall of the human body’s qi and promoting the external and internal communication.The author further explains the characteristics of its pathogenesis and treatment method based on the change of "water vapor on the ground rises to cloud,and cloud vapor in the sky falls into rain" between heaven and earth.Yu Lin used"fire is equivalent to the root of the rash of the plague,and the rash caused by the plague is equivalent to the seedling of the flame" as a metaphor for the pathogenesis and symptoms of the plague.In addition,with the metaphor of "watering the bottom of the flame,the flame cannot prosper",the rash caused by the plague can be treated with "moisturizing treatment",and at the same time,with the help of the metaphor "if the treatment method is diffused,just like the flame is helped by the wind,the fire will be stronger.Therefore,to guide the plague disease with fire poison as the pathogenesis,the traditional Chinese medicine treatment method with the effect of divergence and diffusion cannot be used.This is especially so given that the ancient metaphors for the pestilence are often explicit about the fierceness of the disease,its urgency,and the danger of its symptoms,and are therefore similar to the defense of an invasion.Wang Shixiong used the metaphor of "Those who run a country must check the conditions of the people,the judges of prisons must check the conditions of prisons,and those who are generals must check the conditions of the enemy".Specifically,it means that"before treating cholera,it is necessary to distinguish between deficiency and reality,cold and heat,and medication is like a strategy of war".The author draws on the allusions that the chaos within the country is easily invaded by foreign enemies in macroscopic things and in the aspect of state management,which is used as a metaphor for the treatment of dampness and weakness in the human body during the plague,which helps to resist the external pathogens of wind and cold.With the help of two Chinese idioms,"people who are close to red will turn red,those who are close to ink will become black" and "go to that place and follow the local customs",which are used to metaphorize the prevention and control of plague by the environment of a place.From the perspective of preventing the spread of plague among the population,in addition to treatment based on individual conditions,attention should also be paid to the environmental sanitation of the population,especially diseases such as cholera and dysentery.Environmental sanitation is also related to water and dietary issues. |
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