Shang Hán Lùn on Cold Damage

"The Shang Hán Lùn (On Cold Damage) is among the oldest surviving, the most copiously annotated, and the most revered of China's traditional medical texts. It was compiled by Wáng Shu Hé (210-285 c.e.) from the no longer extant comprehensive clinical manual, Shang Hán Bìng Lùn (On Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases), written by the Eastern Hàn physician Zhang Ji (circa 150-219 c.e.). Of all China's early medical classics, the Shang Hán Lùn is undoubtedly the one of greatest relevance to the modern practice of Chinese medicine, and the one most deserving of Western attention.

In the Shang Hán Lùn, externally contracted disease in all its diverse manifestations and possible courses is understood in terms of evils, most notably wind and cold, which invade the body from outside and pass through the channels and network vessels, causing disturbances of aspects of bodily function that can be recognized by distinct constellations of signs known as "patterns" (zhèng). Each pattern is treated by a variety of methods, using medicinal drugs that are combined into a limited number of formulae whose constituents can be changed to address variations in patterns.

The Shang Hán Lùn is noted for being the first attempt to incorporate medicinal therapy into the medicine of systematic correspondences and channels and network vessels. It is a seminal work in the development of an holistic understanding of disease conditions that considers not only the offending disease evil but also the patient's resistance to it; an understanding of disease in which the disease pattern rather than "disease" is the main focus of attention. The Shang Hán Lùn was far ahead of its time in both theory and practice; not surprisingly, the prescriptions it contains comprise an important part of today's medicinal formulary."