Ancient Medicine And The Female Body From The Perspective Of Fertility

Since the 1980s,the concept of "physical history" has become more and more normalized.With the upsurge of Western Sinology,the revitalization of the social history of the mainland and the vigorous development of new historiography,many research results of "physical history" have emerged,including attention to female bodies.Fertility has always been an important duty of ancient women.This research explores the relationship between knowledge on female body contained in fertility behavior and the development of ancient medicine from several aspects,such as pursuing pregnancy in the bedroom,pregnancy test and miscarriage prevention,delivery technology and the group of midwives,lactation behavior and the historical circumstances of wet nurses.Judging from the existing historical materials,Chinese sexual techniques have come down in one continuous line from the pre-Qin period to the Ming and Qing dynasties,and the most basic principles,techniques and demands remain unchanged.The description of the body in books on sexual techniques is always more detailed in female than male,especially for the movements,sounds,expressions and even secretions of the female in detailed description.They preserve a large amount of historical data on the female’s sexual physiology and psychology,which can’be reached by orthodox medical books.The Chinese concept of heaven permeates the whole medical field and also the books on sexual techniques.Life begins with pregnancy,and factors such as season,weather and location determine the timing of intercourse.Modern medicine has many original ideas about the causes of childlessness,the date of beginning pregnancy and the gender of new babies."Amenorrhea" and the "sterile females" constitute the two extremes of seeking pregnancy.The former can conceive and have children but are without menstruation in her whole life.Compared with modern medical theories,it is probably the physical memory left by early marriage and uncontrolled birth in ancient times,which is now rare.The proposal of the latter makes the cause of childlessness move from moral issues to medicine.Diagnosis of pregnancy is represented by four kinds of pulse-diagnostic methods,namely"Shoushaoyin Pulse is active","Chi Pulse is much more active than Cun Pulse","menelipsis without disease symptoms" and "pulse with even speed".In addition,there are some auxiliary fetal examination methods.Written language cannot reflect the actual principle of pulse diagnosis,but many medical records record the existence of misdiagnosis of pregnancy.These medical records occurred in the Ming and Qing dynasties when the theory of pulse diagnosis was mature and the pulse-diagnostic method for females started.In terms of nourishing the fetus,from Zhang Zhongjing,Wang Shuhe to Xu Zhicai’s "Formula for Nourishing the Fetus Month by Month",the transformation from scattered practical experience to systematic theory has been completed,while customs such as avoiding eating rabbit meat and avoiding seeing actors reflect the thinking mode of "similarity law" and "contact law".Female’s childbirth is a narrow escape."Preparing drugs for puerperal period" in case of danger has been popular since the Song dynasty.Trying to restore the use of these utensils and drugs can reconstruct the historical scene of childbirth.Doctors put forward a variety of delivery postures,which should be regarded as the best postures in different postures rather than the requirements for delivery postures.New breakthroughs of Obstetrics were made in the Song Dynasty,with a group of high-level obstetricians emerging.Yang Zijian’s "On Delivery in Ten Situations" proposes the external treatment methods to deal with ten kinds of abnormal fetal positions and umbilical cord entanglement,such as transverse childbirth,inverted childbirth and lateral childbirth,so that many parturient women get rid of dangers.Midwife,an indispensable participant in the delivery of the parturient,usually refers to a woman making a living on midwifery.Medical books since the Song Dynasty have talked about midwives repeatedly,but they have received both positive and negative remarks.A considerable number of doctors believe that women’s childbirth is a natural process,and improper midwifery is the main reason for their criticism,and the other reason is the greed for money and profits.Most doctors suggest that the elderly and experienced ones should be the first choice in choosing midwives,with the attitude of "I choose her instead of she chooses me".Other records showed that male doctors and midwives cooperated with each other to explore midwifery skills.Doctors’criticism of folk midwives reflects the development trend of modern obstetrics to a certain extent,that is,the disconnection between obstetrics theory and practice.Doctors’ rejection of knife cutting is a denial of the effectiveness of specific practical techniques under the guidance of the theory that we should let nature take its course in delivery.Gender,internal disputes in medical development,and differences between literary images and historical realities are factors that we must consider in re-evaluating midwives.Wiping the mouth of newborn babies to remove toxins is an important task before breastfeeding.Ancient doctors believed that the fetus gets a kind of heat toxin from the mother in the pregnancy process and it is the source of future disease.There are certain rules to follow for the time of umbilical cord cutting,use method of tools,length of umbilical cord left and nursing after umbilical cord cutting.Umbilical cord connects mother and infant.How to cut umbilical cords is also a factor that must be considered for treatment of emergency such as dystocia,hemorrhage,loss of Qi,and undelivered placenta.The way of breastfeeding represents the most basic,common and core part of the nursing culture in every society.The composition and quality of milk reflect the nutrition and health of breast-feeding mothers directly.Modern doctors believe that milk can also reflect the mother’s subtle psychological activities and temperament,affecting and being transmitted to the baby.Therefore,it advocates strict restraint on wet nurses in order to keep young babies well.Infants are delicate and inconvenient to take medicine.Ancient physicians asked their mothers or wet nurses to take it on their behalf,and then feed the infants with milk absorbed with the medicine.The taking methods of milk absorbed with medicine as the above are roughly divided into two categories:taken by the wet nurses and taken by both wet nurses and infants.The average family cannot afford to hire a wet nurse and can only rely on the assistance of relatives and friends.Wet nurses seek their livelihood with their milk and gentle maternal care.Due to different service objects,their living conditions are obviously different.The historical materials of infant raising homes truly reflect the material conditions of China at that time and affect the social development.It helps us reflect on how traditional China knew and treated women,and Chinese people’s medical relief and physical concepts.