The First Documented Experience of Qi and an Account of Healing Failure: 4th Century BCE

• Published in: Chinese medicine and culture (Print) 2023-06, Vol.6 (2), p.139-146
• Main Author: Cook, Constance A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2589-9627
• DOI: 10.1097/MC9.0000000000000055

This essay will review the earliest case that documents a patient’s experience of qi , one found on a bamboo text buried with the patient who died in the 318 BCE. Details of the healing encounter and of concepts of illness show how non-transmitted documents hidden from later editors in tombs preserve an older layer of medical understanding than that in transmitted canons, such as the Huang Di Nei Jing ( Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor ).The 4th-century BCE case record described below is the longest early medical record concerning the treatment of a specific individual. It is also an account of failure formally recorded for the sake of the survivors and buried with the dead to be transmitted to the world of the spirits. The essay begins with a reevaluation of ancient concept of qi and then moves on to the individual case record.