The Research On The Medicine Profession Of Song Dynasty

The traditiona chinese medicine profession has a long history of development.The traditional medicine profession covers a series of drug cognition,utilization and management activities of ancient people in order to prevent and treat diseases and prolong their lives.The research objects of the traditional chinese medicine profession include natural and processed drugs,management organizations,medicine market and medicinal culture,etc.Its development is not only closely related to medicine,agriculture and business,but also has an independent development path.Before Song Dynasty,the development of medicine mainly went through the process from folk experience to official certification.After Song Dynasty,the utilization of medicine was more reflected in the process of folk dissemination under the guidance of the government.It is an important basis to understand the operation of medicine profession and the development level of official and civil medicine to clarify the relationship between drug administration,pharmaceutical administration,drug sales and other related institutions in Song Dynasty.By analyzing the development course of medicine profession in Song Dynasty,it is not only helpful to show the gradual evolution of traditional medicine profession,but also an important way to explain the continuous development of social economy in Song Dynasty.As an important industry related to life,the ancient medicine profession experienced four stages of development on the basis of the medical cognition system since Warring States Period,Qin and the Han Dynasties.The phase one was Warring States Period,Qin and the Han Dynasties.There was the earliest fad for drugs that mainly met the needs of a few people for tonify.However,the gap between the upper class’ s medication habits and the people’s response to the epidemic was very clear.The phase two was Wei,Jin,Sui and Tang Dynasties.In this stage not only gradually lifted the ancient “medicine separation” prologue,but also promoted the town drug shop,the initial rise of the drug market after Sui and Tang Dynasties.Song Dynasty initiated the third phase of the ancient medicine profession,and established the operating system of the medicine profession under the guidance of the government.At this time,there were many innovations in the use of drugs,management,and beliefs of the medicine profession.The prosperity of medicine profession in Song Dynasty laid a foundation for the development of medicine profession in Ming and Qing Dynasties.In terms of drug utilization,a series of changes took place in the three categories of plant medicine,animal medicine and mineral medicine in Song Dynasty in the aspects of professional cultivation,utilization concept and efficacy status.In the cultivation of plant medicine,there were new developments in the types,techniques,scale and scope of artificially-cultivated medicine in Song Dynasty.In the utilization of animal medicine,the concept of “animal sign” in Song Dynasty was constantly stable and put into practice,which led people to develop and utilize the animal medicine that was already known,instead of arbitrarily using other wild species.In terms of drug substitutes,including animal drugs,the medicalists did not increase the variety of substitutes without restraint,but adopted relatively stable drug use standards to promote the standardized development of proprietary drugs.In the utilization of mineral medicine,mineral medicine was widely used to treat common diseases.But in practice,it is also questioned by more and more doctors and scholars.In response,the government once issued a ban aimed at curbing the abuse of mineral medicine,and other plant medicine(such as Astragalus)gradually took on a beneficial role.These changes in the utilization of medicine resources were the basis of the thrive of medicine profession in Song Dynasty.In terms of operation and management,the government of Song attached great importance to the reform of medical institutions,and formed an organic combination of the inner court and the outer palace.The foundation of the official production and sales organization is the division of the administrative and educational functions of Hanlin Hospital and the Bureau.These institutions are gradually carried out from top to bottom and extended to grassroots villages,effectively strengthening the market advantage of the official medicine profession.The central and local official pharmacy bureaus have different priorities,rather than a single direct relationship.Local drug bureaus have a relatively free development space,forming a relatively independent and temporary local medical assistance system which is different from the central government drug bureaus.Under the relatively coordinated policy environment,the commercial towns in Song Dynasty(especially in Southern Song Dynasty)rose widely,and the folk drug stores in the south were also significantly more than those in the north.Many folk pharmacies are no longer directly related to doctors,but directly operated by businessmen.The prominent manifestation of the medicine profession is independence of medicinal materials and the diversification of the business subject.In addition,the standardization and progress of weights and measures in drug circulation,the commercial changes of dosage forms,and the continuous rise of drug prices all showed the new appearance of the development of medicine profession.In terms of the belief in medicine profession,the power of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism were connected with each other in the medical activities,forming the rudiment of profession worship in the name of Buddha and Taoism,which was constructed by the integration of scholars.Through activities such as planting medicine in their houses and opening up medicine gardens,scholars formed a good environment for understanding and using medicine in the society.With their rational critical spirit,they became the disseminate and validate the main body of the prescription.The scholars’ records and extolling of Taoist and Buddhist temples not only promoted the Taoist sages and medical figures to gradually acquire the image of worshipping gods,but also further enhanced the social influence of Buddhist monks’ medical activities.The diversified records of various “the King of Medicine” after Song Dynasty were the social and cultural basis of folk worship in the medicine profession during Ming and Qing Dynasties.In the realistic sense,as a key period of surpassing the average level of ancient economic development,Song Dynasty is the most representative historical stage for us to properly summarize the development experience of ancient medicine profession.It is a reasonable way and unique perspective to systematically explain the development level of medicine profession and to expand the study of social and economic history of Song Dynasty by taking drug utilization as a clue and focusing on the business activities and cultural background of medicinal materials.The development of traditional medicine profession is related to people’s life,government governance and social order.How to synthetically plan the research path of the history of medicine,how to understand and satisfy the increasing dependence and demand of medicine is still an important topic that people need to think deeply.