A Study On Medical Vocabulary

ObjectiveA large number of Silk books and a small amount of Bamboo Slips were underearthed from tomb 3 at Mawangdui, Changsha at the end of 1973, including 15 kinds of medical books. Currently, the Silk Book arrangement group has published the "Silk Book Four," and "Changsha Mawangdui integration", edited by Mr. Qiu Xigui, arranged by Fudan University, Hunan Province Museum through seven years, has also been published. This study is designed to collect, classify, organize medical terms in "Silk Book Four", and research part of the medical vocabulary’s name and reality, features and the evolution of its total duration, naming motivation; summarize the conclusions of the older generation research scholars and explore and research the terms not mentioned by them, making use of medical knowledge to fully exploit the value of the medical Mawangdui Bamboo and silk documents.MethodsIn this study, statistical method is used to make an exhaustive collection of medical vocabulary in "Silk Book Four". This study is based on the method of literature research, combined with linguistics, philology, exegtics, medicine and other disciplines of knowledge, and comprehensive investigation. Comparative method is applied to do comparative studies between "Silk Book Four" and other historical documents, unearthed literature. Inductive method is used to summarize senior scholars’achievement and analyze the characteristics of their research. And the meanings of part of medical vocabulary in "Silk Book Four" are under texual research, in which various views towards the disputed vocabulary are listed and new viewpoints are put forwardResultsIn this study, exegetical methods used by senior scholars when analyzing medical terms in "Silk Book Four" are summarized and illustrated. In this study, medical vocabulary in "Silk Book Four" are exhaustive collected, including 652 human vocabulary,335 disease vocabulary, 590 medicinal herbs vocabulary. In this study, the naming motivation of medicinal herbs is investigated, including image motivation, color motivation, time motivation, motivation for space, taste motivation, functional motivation, characteristic motivation, cultural and other type motivation. In this study, the meanings of some medical terms or the terms not mentioned by previous scholars are discussed through analyzing their point of view, choosing a more reasonable argument, or putting forward their views, as supplement for existing research results.ConclusionThe medical literature has important significance and academic history meaning, reflects medical developments of previous Western Han Dynasty, privides the development of medical research with important clues and information. In recent 40 years, senior scholars have done a lot of research in literature, philology, cultural and other aspects. In this study, the medical terms in "Silk Book Four" are collated and researched; on the basis of analysis of senior scholars’ views, the full use of excavated documents and other historical documents, part of the medical vocabulary are under exegetical research, in order to provide Traditional Chinese Medicine Exegesis with new materials, correct modern Traditional Chinese Medicine dictionary and large Chinese dictionary.