traditional chinese medicine tcm history.

Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derived from the same philosophical bases that contributed to the development of Daoist philosophy, and reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales.

During the golden age of his reign from 2698 to 2596 B.C.E., as a result of a dialogue with his minister Ch'i Pai (岐伯), the Yellow Emperor is supposed by Chinese tradition to have composed his Neijing Suwen (內經素問) or Basic Questions of Internal Medicine, also known as the Huangdi Neijing.

Modern scholarly opinion holds that the extant text of this title was compiled by an anonymous scholar no earlier than the Han Dynasty just over two-thousand years ago.

During the Han dynasty, Zhang Zhong Jing (張仲景), the Hippocrates of China, who was mayor of Chang-sha toward the end of the second century C.E., wrote a Treatise on Cold Damage, which contains the earliest known reference to Neijing Suwen. The Jin dynasty practitioner and advocate of acupuncture and moxibustion, Huang-fu Mi (215 - 282 C.E.), also quoted the Yellow Emperor in his Jia Yi Jing (甲乙經), ca. 265 C.E. During the Tang dynasty, Wang Ping claimed to have located a copy of the originals of the <em>Neijing Suwen, which he expanded and edited substantially. This work was revisited by an imperial commission during the eleventh century.

Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) is notably different from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The Nationalist government elected to abandon and outlaw the practice of CCM as it did not want China to be left behind by scientific progress. For 30 years, CCM was forbidden in China and several people were prosecuted by the government for engaging in CCM. In the 1960s, Mao Zedong finally decided that the government could not continue to outlaw the use of CCM. He commissioned the top ten doctors (M.D.s) to make a survey of CCM and create a standardized format for its application. This standardized form is now known as TCM.

Today, TCM is what is taught in nearly all those medical schools in China, most of Asia and North America, that teach traditional medical practices at all. To learn CCM typically one must be part of a family lineage of medicine. Recently, there has been a resurgence in interest in CCM in China, Europe and United States, as a specialty.

Contact with Western culture and medicine has not displaced TCM. While there may be traditional factors involved in the persistent practice, two reasons are most obvious in the westward spread of TCM in recent decades. Firstly, TCM practices are believed by many to be very effective, sometimes offering palliative efficacy where the best practices of Western medicine fail, especially for routine ailments such as flu and allergies, and managing to avoid the toxicity of some chemically composed medicines. Secondly, TCM provides the only care available to ill people, when they cannot afford to try the western option. On the other hand, there is, for example, no longer a distinct branch of Chinese physics or Chinese biology.

TCM formed part of the barefoot doctor program in the People's Republic of China, which extended public health into rural areas. It is also cheaper to the PRC government, because the cost of training a TCM practitioner and staffing a TCM hospital is considerably less than that of a practitioner of Western medicine; hence TCM has been seen as an integral part of extending health services in China.

There is some notion that TCM requires supernatural forces or even cosmology to explain itself. However most historical accounts of the system will acknowledge it was invented by a culture of people that were already tired of listening to shamans trying to explain illnesses on evil spirits; any reference to supernatural forces is usually the result of romantic translations or poor understanding and will not be found in the Daoist-inspired classics of acupuncture such as the Nèi Jīng or Zhēnjiǔ Dàchéng. The system's development has over its history been skeptically analyzed extensively, and practice and development of it has waxed and waned over the centuries and cultures which it has traveled - yet the system has still survived this far. It is true that the focus from the beginning has been on pragmatism, not necessarily understanding of the mechanisms of the actions - and that this has hindered its modern acceptance in the West. This, despite that there were times such as the early eighteenth century when "acupuncture and <em>moxa</em> were a matter of course in polite European society»

Timeline.

The historyof TCM can be summarized by a list of important doctors and books.

• Time unknown, author unknown, Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng (黃帝內經)(Classic of Internal Medicine by Emperor Huang) - Sù Wèn (素問) & Líng Shū (靈樞). The earliest classic of TCM passed on to the present.

• According to archaelogical findings like in Mawangdui's tombs in 1973 writings on medicine first
  appeared between the eleventh and thid centuries B.C.E.

• Warring States Period (fifth century B.C.E. to 221 B.C.E.): Silk scrolls recording channels and
  collaterals, Zu Bi Shi Yi Mai Jiu Jing (Moxibustion Classic of the Eleven Channels of Legs and Arms), and Yin Yang Shi Yi Mai Jiu Jing (Moxibustion Classic on the Eleven Yin and Yang Channels)

• Eastern Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.) to Three Kingdoms Period (220 - 280 C.E.):
• Zhen Jiu Zhen Zhong Jing (Classic of Moxibustion and Acupuncture Preserved in a Pillow) by Huà Tuó (華佗)
• Shang Han Za Bing Lun aka Shāng Hán Lùn (Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases) by Zhāng Zhòng Jǐng (張仲景)
   
• Jìn Dynasty (265-420): Zhēn Jiǔ Jiǎ Yǐ Jīng (Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion) by Huángfǔ Mì (皇甫謐).
   
• Tang Dynasty(June 18, 618 – June 4, 907)
• Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang (Emergency Formulas of a thousand gold worth) and Qian Jin Yi Fang (Supplement to the Formulas of a thousand gold worth) by Sūn Sīmiǎo (孫思邈)
• Wai Tai Mi Yao (Arcane Essentials from the Imperial Library) by Wang Tao
   
• Song Dynasty.)
• Tóngrén Shūxué Zhēn Jiǔ Tú Jīng (Illustrated Manual of the Practice of Acupuncture and Moxibustion
  at (the Transmission) (and other) Acu-points, for use with the Bronze
  Figure) by Wáng Wéi Yī (王惟一).
• Emergence of (Warm Disease Theory (Wen Bing Xue).
   
• Yuan Dynasty(1271 to 1368): Shísì Jīng Fā Huī (Exposition of the Fourteen Channels) by Huá Shòu (滑壽).
   
• Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644): Climax of acupuncture and Moxibustion. Many famous doctors and books. Only
  name a few:
• Zhēnjiǔ Da Quan (A Complete Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion) by Xu Feng
• Zhēnjiǔ Jù Yīng Fa Hui (鍼灸聚英??) (An Exemplary Collection of Acupuncture and Moxibustion and their Essentials) by Gāo Wǔ (高武)
• Zhēnjiǔ Dàchéng (針灸大成) (Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion) by Yang Jizhou, 1601 C.E., Yáng Jì Zhōu (楊繼洲).
• Běncǎo Gāng Mù (本草綱目) (Compendium of Materia Medica) by Lǐ Shízhēn (李時珍), the most complete and comprehensive pre-modern herb book
• Wen Yi Lun (Theory of Warm-Induced Disorders) by Wu YouShing
   
• Qing Dynasty(1644-1912):
• Yi Zong Jin Jian (Golden Reference of the Medical Tradition) by Wu Quan, sponsored by the imperial.
• Zhen Jiu Feng Yuan (The Source of Acupuncture and Moxibustion) by Li Xuechuan
• Wen Zhen Lun Dz by Ye TianShi.
• Wen Bing Tiao Bian (Systematized Identification of Warm Disease) written by Wu Jutong, a Qing dynasty physician, in 1798