Abstract
Objectives : To determine the level of medicine in the Earlier Han period through 『Liushi Bing Fang』. Methods : Original texts were collected from previously published studies on 『Liushi Bing Fang』 and books to reconstruct the text of 『Liushi Bing Fang』. Results & Conclusions : 151 tablets out of the entire 213, a total of 4,084 characters out of the entire 9,000 were collected. This amounts to about 45% of the entire 『Liushi Bing Fang』. Based on this finding, we could summarize the following. First, the concept of Qi is used in the context of illness, indicating the usage of Qi as a medical concept to be much earlier than previously known, as it appears in a herbal treatment text. Second, on Blood, similarly to 『Wushier Bing Fang』 and 『Wuwei Handai Yijian』, it refers to the physical blood as well as name of disease. Moreover, the concept of stagnated blood is mentioned as 'neiyu(內瘀)' in 『Liushi Bing Fang』, meaning that the doctors of the time held this concept and also had the medicinal knowledge to treat this condition. Third, within 『Liushi Bing Fang』, there are contents on the body parts each medicinal mainly treats. This indicates to the understanding that not only were they at the level to connect each medicinals to its mainly applicable disease, but they were able to connect the herbal medicinals to the inner constructions of the body. Based on these findings, the first text to provide the base to the attributive channel theory of herbal medicinals, where each medicinal's properties and effects are connected to the Zangfu and body parts, needs to be newly acknowledged as 『Liushi Bing Fang』 instead of 『Shennongbencaojing』 as previously known.