Ancient Chinese medicine and its modern interpretation / by Bernard E. Read.

  • Read, B. E. (Bernard Emms), 1887-1949.
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ancient Chinese medicine and its modern interpretation / by Bernard E. Read. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/22 (page 13)
    administered. The medicine is spat into the fire and a cross is marked on the surface of the fire where it bubbles up, when the cat-devil will die. Hydnocarpus, or Ta Feng Tzu (icft-f ), commonly known as chaulmoogra was pronounced at the last International Leprosy Congress, Cairo, to be still the best remedy for leprosy. Its action is obscure, though the work of Walker and Sweeney shows a specific effect on the acid-fast bacillus. It was introduced into Chinese medicine in the Yuan dynasty, a.d. 1280-1368. It was first used by Western physicians in 1855, when Monat in India and Hobson in Canton independently tried it with successful results. *7V* *7? In this brief review of a very large subject the writer has attempted to bring out from the empiricism, the superstition, and the false philosophy of the past, some of the true values to be found in old medicine. It is no longer an unknown secret subject. The natura¬ lists, the chemists, the physiologists and the physicians have done much to identify, to extract, to show the action and establish the uses of those worthwhile.11,12 One must not be misled into think¬ ing that every ancient dead or rotten thing merits a place beside a real scientific remedy. Modern science is like a furnace into which we need not fear to put old lore. The rubbish will perish but the precious material will come out purified and glistening. There is too much human sickness for any doctor, ancient or modern, not to grasp at any efficient remedy to help suffering mankind. We are far from rationalizing even some of the drugs used in modern medicine, and the empiricism of the past is the best hunting ground for the scientific man of the future. But only the most painstaking scientific research can distil the truth from the old records which undoubtedly contain much of value. How it all came about 11 “Review of Scientific work done on Chinese Materia Medica,” B. E. Read and J. C. Liu, National Med. ]., China, 1928, 14, 312. 12 “Chinese Materia Medica: Review of last Decade,” B. E. Read, Chin. Med. J., 1938, 53, 353.