Roots of Chinese medicine are based in “Nourishing Life” or Yangsheng 養生
✍️Wendy Brown, Lic. Ac.
- Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold 千金翼方, compiled by Sun Simiao in the Tang Dynasty, is a comprehensive medical classic which summarized studies and records on medical treatment and had great influence on the development of oriental medicine in the later ages. Sun Simiao lists 233 categories, and among other material, covers internal, external, and first aid medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, detoxification, Yangsheng, acupuncture, and is the earliest Chinese text to discuss the concept Shiliao 食療 or nutritional therapy, and the knowledge that food is the first treatment for any ailment.
We can not receive nourishment without acceptance of our task at hand. Partaking with some sense of openness, we may transform our duty into something of personal, or even greater, value. This ability to transform is a central focus of the earth element in oriental medicine. Sometimes the foreign experience we must digest does not resemble something conferring nourishment, but rather a pile of something indigestible; something difficult and unwanted that we are faced with. 