The Building,Spreading And Practicing Of Medicines Knowledge

Medicines knowledge,in general,is the systematic understanding of drugs,including their names,efficacy,dosage and administrations.The construction,spreading and practice of the knowledge usually contains abundant cultural implications.Based on the examples of Rhizome of Manyleaf Paris and Placenta,the essay discusses Ziheche,another name for them both,mainly focused on its creation,its writing in varied texts and the application of already-known medication knowledge.The origin of the name Ziheche is closely associated with Taoism.Since Rhizome of Manyleaf Paris could be used as a plant material in the refinement of metal-based drugs,or as cinnabar once taken in,similar to the functions of Heche and Ziheche in the Taoist external alchemy,it was named after Ziheche by alchemists.Placenta shares the same name based on the symbol-adoptive-method of traditional Chinese medicine and borrowed from Taoist internal alchemy.The creation of alias is also the process of the ancients observing and understanding their natural and social environments.In the writing and spreading of Ziheche,except the theoretical Chinese materia medica usually stuck to the formal names of medicines,practical books,as is often the case,used those commonly known and frequently written names for practical purposes,while those non-medical books as local chronicles and encyclopedic narrations,Ziheche was more likely to be used.The nonprofessionals also cited from Chinese materia medica while putting medicines knowledge into words,as a way to be more professional,namely,'<??>?'and '<??>?'in local chronicles.During the process,though shared the same same fundamental source of writing,which was professional medical knowledge,those groups had different choices for varied writing purposes and practical needs.According to the timeline,Rhizome of Manyleaf Paris in the medical formularies after the Song Dynasty,usually appeared with another name Ziheche.And after the Ming Dynasty,there were also more placenta applied in prescription with the name Ziheche.To distinguish between the two,the writers of medical formulary put small annotations after medicine names from the former dynasty or slightly changed the names,such as,replaced Ziheche with Caoziheche,Zihechecao,or Caoheche since Rhizome of Manyleaf Paris is a herbal medicine.The practical application of medicines knowledge are usually confronted with the conflicts between efficacy and ethics,thus arousing wide discussions among professional doctors and the general public.Both the discussions and their extensions could help us have a better understanding of the development of mainstream cultural in society.Though placenta's medical effects were recognized by doctors,its application was hindered by customs and ethics,which mystified placenta and even made it the subject of novels.Its use hadn't been widely recognized by the public until after modern times.However,problems like the flooding counterfeit or substandard medicines,extremely expensive prices and the difficulties in accessing and applying placenta arouse a new round of concerns and conflicts.