Not very traditional, nor exactly Chinese, so what kind of medicine is it? TCM's discourse on menopause and its implications for practice, teaching, and research

Journal of Chinese Medicine

Volumn , Issue 82, 2006, Pages 5-20

  Scheid, Volker ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Chinese medicine; History, Chinese medicine; Modernisation, Chinese medicine; Theory, integrated Chinese and Western

Indexed keywords

BAN XIA HOU PO TANG; CHAI HU JIA LONG GU MU LI TANG; DANG GUISHAO YAN SAN; FANG FENG TONG SHENG SAN; GAN MAI DA ZAO TANG; GOU TENG SAN; GUI ZHI FU LING WAN; HUANG LIAN JE DU TANG; JIA WEI XIAO YAO SAN; LIAN ZHU YIN; LING GUI GAN ZAO TANG; NU SHEN SAN; PLANT MEDICINAL PRODUCT; SAN HUANG XIE XIN TANG; TAO HE CHENG QI TANG; UNCLASSIFIED DRUG; WENG QIN YIN;

ARTICLE; BIOMEDICINE; CHINESE MEDICINE; CLINICAL PRACTICE; CULTURAL FACTOR; HORMONE DEFICIENCY; MEDICAL RESEARCH; MENOPAUSAL SYNDROME; MENOPAUSE; SOCIAL ASPECT; TEACHING;

EID: 33750529766     PISSN: 01438042     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Taylor 2004.
2. White 2004.
3. See Williams 1983 for an explication of the different senses of the word "tradition" in the English language.
4. I take this definition from Andrews 1995, Karchmer 2004.
5. Andrews 1996, Hsu 1999, Karchmer 2004, Lei 1998, Scheid 2002, and Taylor 2004 all provide different details of this transformation.
6. The title of these chapters, and therefore the name by which menopausal syndrome is referred to varies. "Manifestation patterns associated with the cessation of menstruation" (jingduan qianhou zhuzheng), "symptoms and signs associated with the cessation of menstruation" (jingduan qianhou zhenghou), "symptoms and signs associated with perimenopause" (juejing qianhou zhuzheng), and "periomenopausal syndrome" (juejingqi zonghezheng), are common terms found in the literature.
7. Liu Minru and Tan Wanxin 2001, p. 406.
8. All citations in this paragraph are from Maciocia 1998.
9. Chen 2002.
10. University of Maryland Medical Center.
11. Zell et al. 2000.
12. Doerfler 1997.
13. Luo Yuankai JV 7c YL 1988, p. 161. Ha Litian is a famous gynaecology specialist from Hebei, Qiu Xiaomei from Zhejiang, and Han Bailing from Helongjiang,
14. I take the term "colonisation" from Karchmer 2004, an anthropologist who spent five years studying Chinese medicine at the Beijing Universitv of TCM and who personallv interviewed numerous physicians who were key plavers in the writing of TCM te tbooks during the 1950s and 60s.
15. Taylor 2004.
16. My account in this and following praragraphs draws on the detailed biography of Professor Zeng in Li Mingfu 1999, pp. 386-420. I have not been able to speak to Professor Zeng myself yet. However, I have talked with Professor Liu Minru from the Chengdu University of TCM, one of the most prominent researchers on menopause and Chinese medicine in China. Prof. Liu is a student of Professor Zeng's collaborator Zhuo Qichi, whom she claims as having introduced the description and treatment of menopause into Chinese medicine. As ever, the politics of TCM in China are extremely difficult for outsiders to decipher. I have therefore followed the official version, even if it may perhaps not reflect the "true" story in its entirety.
17. Chengdu College of Chinese Medicine Chengdu zhongy, xueyuan 1960.
18. Chengdu College of Chinese Medicine Chengdu zhongyi xueyuan 1964.
19. Chen Ziyin and Wang Wenjian 1988.
20. For an overview of Chen Ziyin's research and his influence on TCM see the accounts by Ma Boying, Gao, and Hong Zhongli 1994. A more enduring influence of Chen Ziyin's thinking is the influence of animal models for organ based manifestation patterns in modem TCM. For once it was accepted that such patterns correlated to some objective material reality, it was only a short step to detach them from humans and move them onto animals.
21. Chengdu College of Chinese Medicine Chengdu zhongyi xuevuan 1964,
22. Guo Aichun 1992, p. 4.
23. Zhang Aifang, 1995 # 314), pp. 83-4,
24. and GuoZhiqiang and Zhang Zongfang 1997, pp. 126-32.
25. Liu Minru and Tan Wanxin 2001, the most recent text, does not even attempt anymore to make this connection to the Simple Questions.
26. See for instance Lou Yuankai 1988, p. 161.
27. On the process of this innovation see Scheid 2002, chapter 7, and on its effects Karchmer 2004.
28. See Ye's case records in Ye Tianshi 1766.
29. Li Keguang 1989.
30. Furth 1998, pp. 45-46.
31. Furth 1998, pp. 70-74
32. Furth 1998, p. 144
33. Ibid.
34. Wang Kentang 1602-1608, vol.6, p. 1.
35. Ha Litian 1982.
36. For the treatment of menopausal syndrome Dr. Qiu employed as base treatment Two Teeth Decoction to Calm the Heart Erchi an shen lang composed by herself and consisting of Fossilia Dentis Mastodi lóng chǐ, Mauritiae Conchae zí bèi chǐ, Magnetitum cí shí, and Poriae Selerotium pararadicis fú shén which she combined with Liquorice, Wheat, and Jujube Decoction Gan maidazao tang. See Anonymous 2005
37. Zeng Lingzhen et al. 2004, p. 280.
38. In their visible difference from the biomedical term "menopausal syndrome" gengnianqizonghezheng the terms used to describe menopause in TCM textbooks seek to emphasise a difference of both focus and origin. In terms of focus, the TCM terms draw attention to the individually specific constellation of symptoms into manifestation patterns (zheng) that constitute one of the core aspects of TCM self-definition. In terms of origin, the wording "cessation of menstruation" (jingduan) is a term borrowed from the classical Chinese medical literature. "Menopause" (gengnianqi) is a direct borrowing from the Japanese term konenki, with which it shares the same characters, which in turn is a translation into Japanese of the German Klimakterium from the early 20th century (Lock 1993). As I have shown elsewhere, such naming strategies establish legitimising attachments to past tradition for modern innovations even as they move the Chinese medical body of process ever more closely to the biomedical body of structure (Scheid 2002).
39. OED Online 2004. These issues have been discussed in detail by the anthropologist Margaret Lock 1993, pp. 32-38.
40. Chen, Voda, and Mansfield 1998,
41. Chim et al. 2002;
42. Haines et al. 1995,
43. Ismael 1994,
44. Kagawa-Singer et al. 2002;
45. Lam et al. 2003,
46. Lock 1995;
47. Tsao et al. 2004.
48. Lam et al. 2003;
49. Leung, Ling, and Tang 2004,
50. Tsao and Huang 2004.
51. These issues are discussed at length in academic studies devoted to the body. For an introduction to the topic with direct relevance to Chinese medicine see Kunyama 1999;
52. for its importance in understanding the problem of menopause see Lock 1993. For a more general introduction to the topic see the excellent volume of essays edited bv Feher 1989.
53. Martin 1987.
54. Bulbeck 2001.
55. Cai Zhuang and Zhou Fengqing 1997, p. 100.
56. Zhao, Bao, and Qu 1996.
57. Li Songtao and Xi 1995 for Fujian, and Ge Meiyun and Meihua 1995 for Jiangsu.
58. Pan Guijuan and Fan Zhenglun 1994,
59. Shibala and Wu 1997.
60. Eberhard 2003.
61. Farquhar 1994.
62. I use the term "intervention" here in the sense given to it by the British historian Eric Hobsbawn 1993, which has since been widely used in historical and anthropological research, including studies in the history of Chinese medicine (e.g. Andrews 1995). An "invented tradition" in Hobsbawm's definition is a practice (usually tied to some form of nationalism) that is artificially (rather than organically) anchored in the past. All of the is true for TCM's discourse on menopause and for much of TCM more generally.
63. Zhu Zhenheng 1347, p. 47.
64. Scheid 2002.
65. Xie Guan 1935, p. 62b.
66. Liu Minru and Tan Wanxin 2001, p. 406.
67. The comedy series Goodness Gracious me, written and produced by second-generation immigrants from the Indian subcontinent into the UK, is a brilliant study of how colonisation works in this way.