| Neijing (Canon of Internal Medicine), which is the most important classic and foundation of the nuclear theory of traditional Chinese medicine, has two sections, Suwen (Plain Questions) and Lingshu (Miraculous Pivot), each of them contains of 9 volumes (81 chapters). Through the developing for thousands of years, it is believed that the clinical practices of traditional Chinese medicine were steered by the theory of Neijing, and the most harmonious examples of combination of practice and theory should be found among the existing ancient literatures of clinic case records. By probing on these meaningful clinic cases, some hints on the developing motivation and growth pattern of traditional Chinese medicine theory may be discovered.OBJECTIVE: to investigate the relationship between the Neijing theory and the clinical practice, and try to find the real motivation of the theory development of traditional Chinese medicine.METHODS: collecting the existing ancient special clinical case record books and the odd clinic cases scattered in the ancient general medical literatures, roughly from Han dynasty to Qing dynasty;browsing through the collections and finding the direct citation on the clauses of Neijing;calculating the citation frequency;evaluating the importance of these citing clinical case records;explicating the new understanding on the thought of Neijing in the given cases by the means of researches on literature investigation, statistics, history and academic background of traditional Chinese medicine;by enumeration the typical examples of clinic cases to identify the significance of innovation in the theory development of traditional Chinese medicine.RESULTS:1. From Han dynasty to late Qing dynasty, there are some 303 kinds of ancient clinic case works, which include those of special clinic case recording books and the odd clinic records scattered in some general medicine books. 267 kinds of these books have been collected in the research, and 36 kinds remain temporarily unacquirable.2. It is common for ancient medical practitioners to write down their feelings and theoretical meditations when they recorded the disease development and treatment procedure, some of them cited the inspiring clauses of Neijing. Therefore, these cases arehighly considered in probing into the relationship between theory and practice, and by gathering these cases, the trace and pattern of the theory development can be figured out.3. By browsing these collections, all the cases that directly citing the clauses of Neijing were marked and counted, and the statistics data were analyzed. It was obviously that most of the great master of medicine in ancient China were intentional to cite the clauses of Neijing, and it is believed that most of they bearing such a well-established knowledge background by perusing Neijing in their mind that their clinic thinking were intuitively ? melted in the Neijing theory.3. Comparing the citing frequency, there were a distinct difference between the two sections of Neijing, The Suwen has a much higher citing frequency in clinical cases.than the section of Lingshu, it indicated that Suwen were more valuable in directing the clinical practices. The frequency of citing for different chapters in Suwen were also not proportional, the chapter 3, 5, 7, 39, 43, 44, 71 and 74 rank the top citing frequency. Mean while, the tendency to citing Neijing among ancient clinical case literatures may also vary dramatically.4. Two important authors were worthy of mentioned: Zhang Zihe (1156-1228) was a famous medicine master of Jin dynasty, in his work of Rumen Shi Qin (Confucians' Duties for Parents) he originally created tree special volume recording his clinic cases, and frequently cited Neijing clauses in the discussion affiliated to the cases. Luo Tianyi(1220~ 1290) was an important doctor in Yuan dynasty, and there were some 100 clinic cases recorded in his famous work of Weishengbaojian (Treasure Mirror for Hygiene), 70 cases of them citing the Neijing clauses to explain the medical mechanism and direct the treatment, but his historical contribution on the development of Neijing theory was not properly recognized academically.5. Some typical cases were enumerated to explain the fact that, when considering the given cases, the author may get a new explanation on the Neijing clauses, and these innovative explications enriched the connotation of Neijing, and it is significant in tracing the theory development.6. In general, it was complicated to evaluate the contributions of a certain ancient medical practitioner and his book, therefore the historical trait, his knowledge background and scholar genre must be taken in the consideration.CONCLUSION: The theory of Neijing has been directing the clinic practice for thousands of years. Combining their clinical practice with Neijing thoughts, the medical practitioners may produce innovative explanations on the clauses of Neijing. The accumulation and systematization of these innovations could push forward the theory development.
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