| [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] |
During the Song Dynasty more attention was paid to education in terms of TCM. A new medical school was established where students treated faculty members and soldiers as part of their practical studies. One of the great events of acupuncture occurred during the song dynasty when the Court Doctor Wang Weiyi, wrote The Illustrated Classic on Acupuncture and Moxibustion, containing three articles and in 1027 AD, he designed and cast the two life size bronze statues of the acupuncture meridians and points.
During the Yuan Dynasty, China was controlled by Genghis Khan's vast Mongolian empire. During the period of Mongolian empire Chinese medicine became increasingly specialized and the understanding of acupuncture was further detailed. In 1368, the Chinese regained control of their land under the Ming dynasty. Li Shizhen, (b1518 A.D. d1593 A.D.) was one of the greatest physician and pharmacologist of the Ming dynasty. His major contribution to medicine was his forty-year work, which is found in his epic book Ben Cao Gang-mu or The Compendium of Material Medica. The text contains 1,900,000 Chinese characters and details more than eighteen hundred drugs, including eleven hundred illustrations and eleven thousand prescriptions, as well as record of 1,094 herbs, detailing their type, form, flavor, nature and application in treatment. This book was one of the greatest contributions to the development of pharmacology both in China and throughout the world. Materia Medica has been translated into many different languages and remains as the premier reference work for herbal medicine.
The Revolution of 1911 marked the end of the Qing dynasty, and the beginning of the People's Republic of China. During this time China developed a desire to modernize, and its people began to turn to Western medicine. The government of the time proposed the abolishment of traditional Chinese medicine and took measures to stop its development and use. In 1928 the Communist party of China was formed, under the leadership of Chairman Mao and in 1949 the Communist party came to power. As there was very little or no medical services at the time, the new communist government encouraged the use of traditional Chinese remedies because they were cheap, acceptable to the Chinese, and used the skills already available in the countryside. Finally the traditional Chinese medicine regained popularity by the early to mid 1950s and the use of acupuncture and herbal medicine became standard medicine in many hospitals. Many hospital opened clinics to provide, teach and investigate the traditional methods, the main research institutes being in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. Unfortunately, Chinese medicine, as a reflection of traditional Chinese culture, underwent a period of extreme hardship during the Cultural Revolution. From 1966 to 1976, traditional doctors were purged from the schools, hospitals and clinics, and many of the old practitioners were jailed or killed. In 1979, the National Association for Chinese Medicine was established, and many of the traditional texts were edited and republished. In 1980, the World Health Organization released a list of 43 types of pathologies, which can be effectively treated with acupuncture. Today the traditional Chinese medicine with its many branches has spread far and wide, gaining popularity in all parts of the world.
