"Orthodox Taoist" Four Auxiliary Medical Literature Collation And Research

Taoism is the only religion derived from ancient Chinese traditional culture.The doctrines,history and tradition of Chinese Taoism are unique and different from Buddhism,Islam and Christianity,which are the three major religions in the world.After about two thousand years of practice,Taoist medicine has formed a complicated medical health culture,from the theory of medicine and health philosophy to the specific health technology and methods.President Xi Jinping has said:" Traditional Chinese medicine which embodies the profound philosophical wisdom,the concept of preserving one's health and its practical experience of thousands of years is not only a treasure of ancient Chinese science but also the key to open the treasure house of Chinese civilization " Taoist medicine,an uninterrupted summary of the medical practice experience of the monks for thousands of years,has occupied a place in the generalized field of Chinese traditional medicine.Taoist medicine,especially its philosophy of preserving one's health and its specific methods are the theoretical guidance and practical references for the nationwide people's health.Therefore,it is urgent to enhance the study of the literature of Taoist medicine.The Taoist pathology is a huge summary of the Taoist classics of The Ming Dynasty before 1445,which also contains a lot of Chinese traditional medical knowledge.Some of the rich knowledge of the Chinese herbs and prescriptions concentrates in the prescription monographs which included in The Taoist pathology,while most of them are dispersed along the non-medicine centered Taoism books.It is important to carry out a systematic analysis of them which benefit the theoretical researches and clinical practices.Although a few of the herbs and prescriptions' curative powers are in doubt,most of them still have some theoretical value and practical significance.The previous researches of the Taoist pathology are mostly based on the Taoist teachings and the practice systems.Because similar previous studies tend to use literature method or Taoist teaching methods instead of using the combined method of medicine,pharmacy and statistics,it is practical for us to hold a perspective of Chinese medicine theory to analyze these medical related literatures.It is probably for the studies of medical related literatures to get more breakthroughs than ever by the method of interdisciplinary research.In this paper,we choose the combined method of literature,Chinese medicine,statistics,Taoism,religion,and so on;to do the classification and cataloging of those selected medical related literature.At present,there are already different kinds of studies about the acupuncture of the Taoist pathology and the medical related literature of the Dongshen part,the Dongzhen part,the Dongxuan part and the Taixuan part,while there are no systematic arrangement and research about the four auxiliaries' selected medical related literatures(Just include Taiping,Taiqing and Zhengyi.)of the Taoist pathology.Because Mr.Chen has systematically studied the alchemy of lead and mercury from the Taoist pathology,and other scholars' studies are based on acupuncture,medication,breathing technique and other aspects,the content of the research is only focused on the four auxiliaries' Chinese herbs and prescriptions of the Taoist pathology,doesn't conclude the study of lead and mercury and times of the surgery,and also doesn't considered the several medical monographs of traditional Chinese medicine included in the Taoist pathology.The statistical results show that the four auxiliaries of the Taoist pathology include a total of 448 literatures among which 117 articles from the Taixuan part,66 articles from the Taiping part,25 articles from the Taiqing part and 240 articles from the Zhengyi part.There are 78 medical related literatures selected from the four auxiliaries,consisting of 10 articles from the Taixuan part,26 articles from the Taiping part and 43 articles from the Zhengyi part.The Taiping part contains more than 140 herbs and 120 prescriptions,and the Zhengyi part concludes nearly 300 herbs and 80 prescriptions.Generally speaking,the effect of a single herb in the literature is relatively rare,and there are also a few elaborations on the theory of prescriptions.Although the knowledge is religion related,their value is more than that.