Cheng Dan'an
Chinese acupuncturist
Cheng Dan'an
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承淡安 | ||||||
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Born |
1899
Jiangyin
, Jiangsu,
Qing China
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Died |
10 July 1957 (aged 57–58)
Suzhou
, Jiangsu, China
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Alma mater | Tokyo College of Acupuncture | |||||
Occupation | Acupuncturist | |||||
Years active | 1930–1957 | |||||
Known for | Founding the first school of acupuncture in modern China [1] | |||||
Chinese name | ||||||
Chinese | 承 淡 安 | |||||
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Cheng Dan'an ( Chinese : 承淡安 ; 1899 – 10 July 1957) was a Chinese acupuncturist who founded the first school of acupuncture in modern China, made widespread changes to the practice, and served as chairperson of the Chinese Medical Association .
Career
Cheng was born in 1899 in Jiangyin , Jiangsu . [2] He first developed an interest in acupuncture in 1923, after suffering from severe lower back pain which was relieved by his father's acupuncture. [3] He attended the Tokyo College of Acupuncture in Japan, [3] before establishing the first school of acupuncture in modern China. [4] [1] The Jiangsu-based China Acupuncture Research Centre ( 中国针灸研究社 ) was open from 1930 till the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, [5] by which time it had been renamed the China Acupuncture Technical College ( 中國針灸專門學校 ), implying that its degrees were accredited by the state. [6] The school had its own publishing arm that produced numerous acupuncture-related works, many of which were authored by Cheng. [5] Cheng also began the first acupuncture journal, Zhenjiu zazhi ( 針灸雜誌 , literally Journal of Acupuncture ), in 1933. [7]
During the war, Cheng fled to Chongqing . He returned to Jiangsu in 1947 to discover that his acupuncture school had been destroyed; [6] it was re-established in 1951 in Suzhou . [5] In 1954, he served as a member of the Provincial People's Congress and headed the Jiangsu Provincial Congress of Chinese Medicine. [6] The same year, he was appointed as director of a Nanjing -based school that would eventually be named the Jiangsu College of Chinese Medicine. [6] In 1955, he was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and appointed as the Chinese Medical Association 's vice-chairperson and, subsequently, chairperson. [6] [8] Cheng suffered from ill health in his final years; he died of a heart attack on 10 July 1957 in Suzhou, at the reported age of 59. [9]
Acupuncture reforms
Writing in his 1931 treatise Zhongguo zhenjiu zhiliao xue ( 中國針灸治療學 , literally Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion Therapeutics ), Cheng laments that "the pathways of acupuncture points recorded by our forebears are mostly lacking in detail". [10] His book was therefore an attempt at "(redefining) acupuncture points and meridians to correlate more closely with peripheral nerve distributions" in order to give acupuncture more credibility. [11] The book, which was partly inspired by Song dynasty writings on acupuncture, [12] was positively received upon its release and went into its eighth edition by May 1937. [10]
Cheng made radical changes to the practice of acupuncture. Whereas acupuncture had previously been performed in tandem with bloodletting, so as to allow a "smooth flow" in the blood vessels, Cheng argued that acupuncture that resulted in blood being drawn was the product of an inept practitioner. [13] Additionally, Cheng sought to uncouple acupuncture from astrology and divination. He refrained from thinking of time in terms of yin and yang , and considered the tradition of treating men and women on their left and right sides respectively to be mere superstition. [7] Crucially, Cheng dispensed with bodkins and scalpels, instead preferring to perform acupuncture with the now-ubiquitous filiform metal needles. [7]
According to Alexandra Dimitrova, Cheng is "widely considered the father of modern acupuncture". [3] Bridie Andrews writes in The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine (2014): "Cheng Dan'an rescued Chinese acupuncture from superstition and oblivion, paving the way for scientific acupuncture to raise the status of Chinese medicine as a whole, as it did during the Communist era." [6]
References
Citations
- 1 2 Lei 2014 , p. 159.
- ↑ Unschuld & Zheng 2012 , p. 2008.
- 1 2 3 Dimitrova 2020 , p. 451.
- ↑ Buck 2014 , p. 317.
- 1 2 3 Taylor 2004 , p. 45.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Andrews 2014 , p. 204.
- 1 2 3 Andrews 2014 , p. 203.
- ↑ Kaptchuk 2000 , p. 292.
- ↑ Bi 2004 , p. 621.
- 1 2 Andrews 2013b , p. 73.
- ↑ Wang & Audette 2008 , p. 384.
- ↑ Andrews 2013a , p. 209–238.
- ↑ Andrews 2014 , pp. 201–202.
Bibliography
- Andrews, Bridie (2013a). "The Republic of China". In Barnes, Linda L.; Hinrichs, T. J. (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History . Harvard University Press . pp. 209–238. ISBN 978-0-674-04737-2 .
- Andrews, Bridie (2013b). "Chinese Medicine". In Standen, Naomi (ed.). Demystifying China: New Understandings of Chinese History . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 67–78. ISBN 978-1-4422-0895-7 .
- Andrews, Bridie (2014). The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 . UBC Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-2435-4 .
- Bi, Xiangzhao (2004). 江阴文史资料集粹 [ Cultural and historical records of Jiangyin ] (in Chinese). Shanghai guxiang chubanshe. ISBN 9787532535989 .
- Buck, Charles (2014). Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine: Roots of Modern Practice . Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 978-0-85701-133-6 .
- Dimitrova, Alexandra (2020). "Acupuncture in Neurological Disorders: An Evidence-Based Overview". In Ruhoy, Ilene S.; McBurney, John W. (eds.). Integrative Neurology . Oxford University Press . pp. 449–494. ISBN 978-0-19-005163-1 .
- Kaptchuk, Ted J. (2000). Chinese Medicine: The Web that Has No Weaver . Rider. ISBN 978-0-7126-0281-5 .
- Lei, Sean Hsiang-lin (2014). Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China's Modernity . University of Chicago Press . ISBN 978-0-226-16991-0 .
- Taylor, Kim (2004). Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945–1963: A Medicine of Revolution . Taylor & Francis . ISBN 978-1-134-28360-6 .
- Unschuld, Paul Ulrich; Zheng, Jinsheng (2012). Chinese Traditional Healing: The Berlin Collections of Manuscript Volumes from the 16th Through the Early 20th Century . Brill . ISBN 9789004229075 .
- Wang, David; Audette, Joseph F. (2008). "Acupuncture in Pain Management". In Bailey, Allison; Audette, Joseph F. (eds.). Integrative Pain Medicine: The Science and Practice of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Pain Management . Humana Press. pp. 379–416. ISBN 978-1-59745-344-8 .
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