The Collection And Collation Of The Ancient Literatures Of The Treatment Of Mania And Schizophrenia

Mania and schizophrenia are two kinds of psychosis which seriously affect human beings for thousands of years and their incidence is still high at present time. During the stage of attack their treatment is chiefly physical and medication of chemical drugs is first choice. It seems forgotten about the treatment of them with remedies of traditional Chinese medicine. For development of TCM and cure of patients this subject is thus designed. Because treatment is different with the acknowledgement of pathogen and pathology, they are sifted at the same time and so are their clinical manifestations. The chronological limitation is from the dynasties of late Zhou to Qing and three stages are divided. The first includes late Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin and Sui, the second Tang, Song, Yuan and the third Ming and Qing.In late Zhuo and early Qin Dynasties Yellow Emperor Medical Canon was compiled, in which symptoms and treatments are described and there is a special chapter entitled Dian and Kuang. According to the descriptions of their symptoms, Kuang is mainly over active, flight of idea and elation of emotion and Dian is apathy, disharmony, indifferent and presence of some delusion, hallucination, paranoid ideas. Upon the pathogen Kuang was considered to be due to more yang and Dian more yin. It is really that Dian is schizophrenic disorder and Kuang manic of present time. The treatments were chiefly acupuncture for Dian and broken bits of row iron for kuang. Besides, dietary and psychological therapies were also applied.In the later dynasties of this stage the description of symptoms were enriched and herbs were used in treatment of them.In the stage of Tang and Song Dynasties, it is the prosperous time of traditional Chinese medicine especially in the period of Qin and Yuan there were different schools to treat illnesses according to their own viewpoints and doctrines, phlegm and fire were proposed as the cause of Dian and Kuang. Descriptions of clinical manifestations were abundant and active. Herb drug become the main method of treatment and quite a lot of herb drug prescriptions were introduced. Acupuncture was improved and popularly applied.In the stage of Ming and Qing dynasties hemostasis was considered to be the cause of Dian and Kuang by some school and prescription of herb drugs for cleaning up the stasis of blood was introduced. It is effective for the indicated patient.From the review of ancient literatures it clearly expresses that the development of the diseases, Dian and Kuang, is not completed in certain time but advanced, either theory or therapeutics, step by step with the progress of other branches of medicine at different periods. It would be still useful not only in theory but treatment. For example, the theory that considered more yang causes Kuang and more yin dian, the idea is the same that mania is due more excitation and schizophrenia more inhibition. The nature of excitation belongs to yang and inhibition yin. So that Dian is integrated with schizophrenia and Kuang mania in this paper. The methods of treatment including medication, acupuncture and psychological of TCM would be effective today too as papers published by modern scholars from their study are not rare. In a word psychiatry as a branch of TCM would be carried forword.