The knowledge of the human body and the culture of a healthy lifestyle has been an inseparable aspect of Chinese life for thousands of years. This culture finds it roots in the experience and profound levels of understanding that exist in Chinese philosophy and medical discoveries surrounding the human body. The basis of Chinese health is seen as a systematic approach to the study of the relationship between humanity and nature, stressing the different systems that exist in the body and the balance necessary to maintain healthy bodily functions. In Chinese holistic health one important aspect to preserving health is through the balance and connectivity of the mind, spirit, and body. This idea, when taken one step further, opens us up to recognize the rich relationship between the universe and humankind.

The Holistic Approach

Around 4,000 BC in ancient China, people had already begun to notice the effects and reactions brought about on the human body from outside influences; this was the beginning of a holistic viewpoint to health. At this time, the ancients of China had commenced on the long road of gathering the secrets to a healthy life whereby developing the basis of the culture of a healthy lifestyle. The Chinese had already begun moving toward a structured holistic view of the relationship between human life and the universe.

The Yellow Emperor, or "Huang Di", is the one man in Ancient China who is renowned as a man of many inventions and the father of health culture. He was a humble and studious man and invented many useful tools which were very advanced for his day and age. Legend has it that Huang Di invented a compass driven cart which played a large role in the unity of two indigenous tribes, which were to later become the ancestors of the Chinese people. After many years and with the help of numerous scholars, Huang Di completed the first work in Chinese health culture.

This work is based on the ideals of the relationship between humankind and the universe as a whole. It is presented from the point-of-view of "Yin Yang" (Yeen Yahng), the all encompassing Chinese theory of universal balance, and Wu Xing (Woo Shing), the interaction between five natural elements to create balance, these two ideals constitute the tools used in the achievement of good health in Chinese thought. By mapping out the different organs in the human body and drawing up the channels of Qi, Huang Di created a work of health concepts that has been used and improved on for thousands of years.
.
The Body According to Yin Yang

The philosophical origins of Chinese medicine have grown out of the tenets of Daoism. Daoism bases much of its thinking on observing the natural world and manner in which it operates. Yin Yang describes how the Ancient Chinese viewed the world as containing a perfect balance of opposing forces. They believed that the unification of opposites was the law of change in all things. Chinese traditional health culture sees Yin Yang as a basic aspect of life energy movement, when Yin Yang is in balance the body is healthy.

It is worthy to point out here the idea of balance in Chinese thought. Balance, in this context, should not be confused with the idea of balance in the West. The balance that is expressed here is sometimes achieved through contradiction and not through harmony. This achievement of balance in nature, and even in human health, is through opposing forces, which may be in a state of repose.
In today's world, and because of the onslaught of poor habits and environmental hazards, we are being bombarded with the causes of illness and discomfort, our health is being incessantly challenged. The Chinese Culture of a Healthy Lifestyle can lead us to a resource of knowledge that can teach us how to maintain health of spirit, mind, and body.

The earliest concept of Yin Yang held a balance between abstract and concrete, take for example the sun; areas that receive sunlight would be considered as "Yang"; areas which received no sunlight, or shady areas, would be considered as "Yin". Later, over time, other phenomena were recognized such as; Summer versus winter, up versus down, left versus right, inside versus outside, and action versus rest.

The Body and Illness

Within the human body and its surroundings, physical and physical, energy and energy, and physical and energy must all maintain balance; they must all maintain a Yin Yang balance. This is the basis of health and the way to maintaining healthy physical activity. The forces of Yin Yang are interdependent; they sustain and restrict, increase and decrease. Consequently, when Yin Yang is out of balance illness is present.

The occurrence of illness is related to the aspects of healthy and harmful Qi. Healthy Qi refers to the whole structure and functions of the body, including the defenses that the body has against illness; the immune system. Harmful Qi, or Xie Qi, refers to any factor which causes illness. The properties of healthy Qi and harmful Qi can also be categorized by Yin Yang. Healthy Qi is divided into Yin Qi and Yang Qi; harmful Qi is divided into Yin Xie and Yang Xie.

The process of illness is the struggle between Zheng Qi and Xie Qi, or healthy and harmful Qi. The result is an imbalance of Yin Yang where either Yin or Yang may be in excess or deficient. No matter how complex the illness, the complexity does not go beyond the excess or deficiency of Yin or Yang. Therefore, if one desires to avoid illness and remain in good health, they must use all possible ways to maintain balance of Yin Yang, whereby reaching the highest level of a healthy lifestyle.

When the classic philosophers contemplated natural phenomenon they would explain it from the concept of Yin Yang. They perceived all aspects of nature as existing within opposing forces, positive and negative, life and death. Scholars of Yin Yang believed that the world is a material whole resulting from the unification of the opposing forces of Yin Yang. Yin Yang represents the interaction and unification of opposing properties. At the same time, the properties of Yin Yang in physical phenomena are also divisible, for instance; daytime as Yang, and nighttime as Yin. When speaking of the divisions of day and night, morning is considered to be 'Yang within Yang', afternoon is 'Yin within Yang', from midnight to three in the morning is 'Yin within Yin', and from three to six in the morning is 'Yang within Yin'. There are divisions of Yin and Yang within Yin Yang that go on endlessly. Thus, we can see that all phenomena, physical and non-physical, within the universe can be categorized within Yin Yang. In addition, just as we saw the divisions of time, all things within one category of Yin or Yang can be sub-categorized into finer divisions of Yin and Yang. This occurrence is widely visible in all of nature. In most instances, outward or upward motion or action, warmth and heat, light and illumination are all features of Yang, whereas inward or downward motion or action, chill or cold, and darkness are all features of Yin. When speaking from the point of view of a healthy lifestyle, if the human body exhibits the properties of action or motion, warmth, excitement, or anything similar, it is considered to belong to the category of Yang. However, if the properties of restriction, moisture, or restraint are present they belong to the category of Yin.

Balance and Harmony

All phenomena in nature are a result of the unity and balance of Yin Yang. The human body not only needs to maintain a balance of Yin Yang within, it must also adapt to the Yin Yang of the environment it finds its self in. The physical realm, just like the human body, is in constant motion and change. The physical body is constantly adjusting and adapting to its surroundings. The vital movements within the body must sense the supporting and restraining effects of its surroundings; weather, altitude, and seasonal changes, which will have direct influence on the bodily organ movements and functions. If the body is able to make the correct adjustments to its surroundings and adapt correctly, it will remain in good health. However, if the changes in the surroundings overpower the body's ability to adapt, or if the body is too feeble or weak, the ability to adjust correctly is lost and there will exist an imbalance in Yin Yang which will lead to illness. It is important to gain a good grasp of the laws of natural change to achieve the needed overall unity and balance that will lead to overall health.

In the realm of Yin Yang, it is considered that the result of balance, or harmony, between the two opposing forces is achieved through normal daily life activity. When speaking of physical versus energy forces, physical would be categorized as Yin and energy as Yang, in the aspect of Yin Yang these two are considered as opposing forces. Normal human life activity is considered to be the foundation of physical matter, without physical activity there would be no resulting energy, therefore no resulting physical material which promotes a continuous metabolic process. If there is a division of Yin Yang or if Yin Yang cannot maintain unification, it must result in the termination of life. In the Chinese classic "Su Wen" it is written, "If a human being is able to achieve balance in Yin Yang, the body will be strong and healthy, the mind will be calm and peaceful, however if there is a separation of Yin Yang the person will die."

The Beginnings of Holistic Medicine

China was one of first countries to have a medical culture. In comparison with Western medicine, the Chinese method takes a far different approach. With a history of 5,000 years, it has formed a deep and immense knowledge of medical science, theory, diagnostic methods, prescriptions and cures. With a history of 2000 to 3000 years, traditional Chinese medicine has formed a unique system to diagnose and cure illness. The traditional Chinese medicine approach is fundamentally different from that of Western medicine. In traditional Chinese medicine, the understanding of the human body is based on the holistic understanding of the universe as described in Daoism, and the treatment of illness is based primarily on the diagnosis and differentiation of syndromes.

The basic principles of Chinese medicine are rather distinctive: Principles of Ying and Yang - The Physiology of Chinese medicine holds that the human body's life is the result of the balance of yin and yang. Yin is the inner and negative principles, and yang, outer and positive. The key reason why there is sickness is because the two aspects lose their harmony. Seen from the recovery mechanism of organs, yang functions to protect from outer harm, and yin is the inner base to store and provide energy for its counterpart. Basic Substance - Doctors of Chinese medicine believe that vital energy - moving and energetic particles, state of blood, and body fluid are the essential substances that compose together to form the human body, and the basis for internal organs to process. They are channeled along a network within the body - Jing Luo as their channels. On the physical side, vital energy serving to promote and warm belongs to the properties of yang, and blood and body fluid to moisten possesses the properties of yin. Four Methods of Diagnosis - It is a wonder that Chinese doctors could cure countless patients without any assistant apparatus but only a physical examination.

The Chinese approach treats zang--fu organs as the core of the human body. Tissue and organs are connected through a network of channels and blood vessels inside human body. Qi (or Chi) acts as some kind of carrier of information that is expressed externally through jingluo system. Pathologically, a dysfunction of the zang-fu organs may be reflected on the body surface through the network, and meanwhile, diseases of body surface tissues may also affect their related zang or fu organs. Affected zang or fu organs may also influence each other through internal connections. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment starts with the analysis of the entire system, then focuses on the correction of pathological changes through readjusting the functions of the zang-fu organs.
Evaluation of a syndrome not only includes the cause, mechanism, location, and nature of the disease, but also the confrontation between the pathogenic factor and body resistance. Treatment is not based only on the symptoms, but differentiation of syndromes. Therefore, those with an identical disease may be treated in different ways, and on the other hand, different diseases may result in the same syndrome and are treated in similar ways.

The clinical diagnosis and treatment in traditional Chinese medicine are mainly based on the yin-yang and five elements theories. These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to the study of the physiological activities and pathological changes of the human body and its interrelationships. The typical traditional Chinese medical therapies include acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qigong exercises. With acupuncture, treatment is accomplished by stimulating certain areas of the external body. Herbal medicine acts on zang-fu organs internally, while qigong tries to restore the orderly information flow inside the network through the regulation of Qi. These therapies appear very different in approach yet they all share the same underlying sets of assumptions and insights in the nature of the human body and its place in the universe. Some scientists describe the treatment of diseases through herbal medication, acupuncture, and qigong as an "information therapy".

Such a complicated medical science had come down thanks to records like The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Interior Medicine, Shen Nong's Canon of Herbs, and the Compendium of Materia Medica, which are all comprehensive and profound works. There are also wide-spread stories praising the experienced and notable doctors in ancient China like Hua Tuo in the Three Kingdoms Periods (220 - 280). Today, though western medicine has been adopted, traditional treatments are still playing an important role and have raised great attention and interest worldwide due to the amazing curative effects reported.

The Law of Balance between Heaven and Man

"Heaven" refers to the natural environment; "Man" refers to the human body. The idea behind the Balance between Heaven and Man expresses the strong connection that exists between nature and humanity. All changes and movements of nature will have some effect, direct or indirect, on the human body. If, during the movements of the seasons, there occurs uncommon weather phenomenon; cold during spring, warmth during winter, a long drought, or heavy rains, they will all have some effect on the human body. The only way for the body to maintain good health is by adapting to the changes in its natural surroundings.

Thus, the ancients used the supportive and restrictive, or positive and negative, principles of Yin Yang to represent and explain natural surroundings and climate changes. Whereby, pointing out the changes of Yin Yang and the changes of the seasons as being the basic principle in the adaptation process; if a person desires health and longevity it is important to adhere to these principles of nature.

The World According to Wu Xing

The Wu Xing, or Five Elements explain the structure of the world. In China, Wu Xing, much like its counterpart Yin Yang, has made a large contribution in the study of a healthy lifestyle.
The main idea behind Wu Xing is not so simple as to say that all things can be divided into five separate categories. Rather, the Five Elements exist within the laws of mutual support, and restraint, and are used to explain the relations between complex systems and material objects. It is on this basis that the idea of completeness and a unified self adjustment is expressed. Through the adjustment of Wu Xing the functions of the body are strengthened, allowing individual functions to maintain or recover normal conditions, the result is the healthy lifestyle goal of well-being and longevity. Within the natural world, these five elements have different kinds of unions, which after close observation they discovered the mutual associations of support and restriction, which they continued to develop and expand on. They noticed how the elements were interrelated through continual support and restriction causing them to achieve and maintain balance.

The Properties of the Five Elements

• Wood - The ancients saw the growth pattern of trees as upward and outward with branches growing curved and straight. They recognized them as displaying the usage and properties of growth and upward expansion.
• Fire - The ancients saw fire as having the characteristics of heat and rising motion. They recognized this as the usage and properties of heat and ascension.
• Soil - The ancients saw soil as having the usages of sowing, cultivating and harvesting. Therefore they recognized it as being an element of growth, able to bear weight, and able to receive. As in the sayings; "All things return to the earth", and "the earth is the mother of all things".
• Metal - The ancients recognized metal as having the properties and usages of purity, and restraint.
• Water - The ancients recognized water as having the properties and usages of moisture, cold, and downward motion.

Acupuncture

The practice of acupuncture and moxibustion is based on the theory of meridians. According to this theory, qi (vital energy) and blood circulate in the body through a system of channels called meridians, connecting internal organs with external organs or tissues. By stimulating certain points of the body surface reached by meridians through needling or moxibustion, the flow of qi and blood can be regulated and diseases are thus treated. These stimulation points are called acupuncture points, or acupoints.

Acupoints reside along more than a dozen of major meridians. There are 12 pairs of regular meridians that are systematically distributed over both sides of the body, and two major extra meridians running along the midlines of the abdomen and back. Along these meridians more than three hundred acupoints are identified, each having its own therapeutic action. For example, the point Hegu (LI 4), located between the first and second metacarpal bones, can reduce pain in the head and mouth. The point Shenmen (HT 7), located on the medial end of the transverse crease of the wrist, can induce tranquilization.

The effectiveness of an acupuncture treatment is strongly dependent upon an accurate Chinese medical diagnosis. The needling skills and techniques of the practitioner will also influence greatly the effectiveness of the outcome. Acupuncture can be remarkably effective in many conditions, but in the West, patients often use acupuncture as the last option for their long-term chronic problems. Therefore we sometimes see the treatment as slow and in some cases of marginal benefit. With the gradual establishment of acupuncture as the treatment of choice for many people, the effectiveness of the approach with acute as well as with more chronic conditions is being recognized.

Herbal Medicine

Together with acupuncture, herbal medicine is a major pillar of Chinese medicine. The Chinese pharmacopoeia lists over 6,000 different medicinal substances in terms of their properties and the disharmonies that they were helpful with. There are about 600 different herbs in common use today.
Herbs are classified in two major dimensions. The first dimension refers to the temperature characteristics of the herb, namely hot (re), warm (wen), cold (han), neutral (ping), and aromatic. The second dimension refers to the taste property of the herb, namely sour (suan), bitter (ku), sweet (gan), spicy (xin), and salty (xian).

The various combinations of temperature and taste give the herb its properties that can influence the yin and yang energy patterns of the body. For example, sour, bitter and salty tastes are related to yin, whereas acrid, sweet are attributed to yang. There are herbs that will warm, herbs that will cool, herbs that will tonify, herbs that will move stagnation and so on. It is also important to understand that herbs do not possess one quality. They are most always a combination of properties and temperatures and may reach one to as many as twelve organ systems. Warm herbs can be used with individuals suffering from Heat disorders, but the herb with warm energy must be mixed with herbs with Cool/Cold energy so that the overall balance of the mixture is on the Cool side. Likewise, Cool herbs can be used with people with Cold disorders as long as the overall balance of the mixture is warm. Neutral herbs are those that are neither hot nor cold, so they are often considered gentle herbs. There are not too many neutral herbs in the pharmacopoeia.

As for the tastes, sour constricts or consolidates. Herbs of sour taste are often indicated for use in perspiration due to deficiency, protracted cough, chronic diarrhea, seminal and urinary incontinences, leakage or spermatic fluid, and other conditions related to hypo-metabolism (under-performance). In traditional Chinese medicine, they are seen as deficient or cold patterns.

The unique characteristic of Chinese herbal medicine is the degree to which formulation is done. In other forms of herbal medicine, especially western herbal medicine, herbs are often delivered singly or combined into very small formulas of herbs with the same function. In contrast, Chinese herbalists rarely prescribe a single herb to treat a condition. They create formulas instead. A formula usually contains at least four to twenty herbs. Herbal formulas can be delivered in all manners of preparation. Decoction is the traditional method of preparing herbal medicine. A decoction is a concentrated form of tea. The practitioner weighs out a day's dosage of each herb and combines them in a bag. A patient is given a bag for each day the herbal formula will be taken. The herbs are then boiled in water by the patient at home.

Qi

In Chinese thought there is also the important aspect of recognizing disease or discomfort through the balance or imbalance of "Qi" (Chee), which can be understood as "Life Energy". There are two kinds of Qi, healthy Qi or Zheng (jung) Qi, and harmful Qi or Xie (she-ay) Qi; Zheng Qi can be related to a healthy immune system and is something that exists within; Xie Qi can be related to the causes of illness and discomfort and exists without. With this, comes the important idea of preventive medicine or "stopping illness before its onset". Similar to the theory of yin-yang, qi was derived from ancient Chinese philosophy, which believes everything is related. In traditional Chinese medicine, qi is treated as the fundamental substance of the human body, and its movements explain various life processes. Qi in its physiological sense constitutes, replenishes and nourishes the human body. Qi is often called vital energy because it is believed to be the motive energy derived from the essential substance for various vital processes.

Qi is often classified according to what it acts on. For example, the heart-qi refers to the force with which the heart works and the blood circulates, so it regulates the cardiac function; the stomach-qi refers to the force with which the stomach functions, so it regulates the gastric function. The qi that maintains normal functioning for resistance against disease is called zheng-qi, which means genuine energy or body resistance. The qi that warms the body and maintains normal body temperature is called yang-qi, which is similar to the heat energy. Metabolism of materials and energy also depends on the action of qi, including metabolism of blood, fluids and other essential materials.

Qi is formed from the inhaled oxygen, the dietary nutrients, and the inborn primordial qi stored in the kidney, which may be genetically related. Qi circulates along meridians and collaterals. A healthy body requires normal circulations of qi. Health problems occur if the flow of qi is stagnated. The circulation of qi is also closely related to mental conditions. Emotional instability may cause the stagnation of qi. For example, anger may lead to dizziness, headache, distress in the hypochondriac regions, or distention in the stomach with impairment of appetite. On the other hand, the exercise of mind can help the circulation of qi, which is the purpose qigong exercise.

Medical Text

The archeological discoveries of the last few decades reveal that during the two centuries of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC - 23 AD), Chinese medical thought underwent a process of comprehensive standardization and systematization. This newly emerging image is in contrast with the views of the Chinese medical tradition tracing the origins of their primary medical canons to pre-Qin times. The medical manuscripts excavated in 1973 from Tomb #3 at Mawangdui show that the early medical classics, especially the Huangdi neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic), which is revered as the oldest writings of its kind, had not only been compiled much later than it is commonly believed in the Chinese tradition but even the views represented in them could not have developed before the Han. Thus the standard view of medical tradition of the last fifteen-seventeen hundred years in China contradicts to the reality manifested in the Mawangdui manuscripts. Based on the manuscript texts, one can determine that at the time of Qin (221 BC - 206 BC) and the beginning of Western Han most of the typical features of the Chinese healing art had not been formed yet. One must also point out here the significance of the Nanjing (Classic of Difficult Issues) and its role in establishing a new direction towards a standardized and systematic body of knowledge.

The traditional Ancient Chinese medical writings, with a very few exceptions, are still not available in any of the main European languages. As is the case with many other aspects of Chinese culture, the authorship of medical classics has been assigned to mythical personages and pushed back to times of remote antiquity. In traditional thought, the beginning of healing art had been associated with Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor or Yellow Sovereign and the knowledge of pharmacology with Shennong, the Divine Husbandman; they hand down their wisdom in the Huangdi neijing or the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic and the Shennong bencao, the Materia Medica of the Divine Husbandry, respectively. Huangdi was the one who taught people the knowledge of raising silk-worms, riding boats and carriages, also he was the one who invented writing, music and medicine. Chinese historical records date the reign period of Huangdi and, consequently, the Huangdi neijing to 2698 B.C., a time which by no means can be regarded historically reliable. The Huangdi neijing is one of the first, and undoubtedly the most important, classic in the history of Chinese medicine, which had an enormous influence on the medical thought in later centuries. The book records the dialogs between the Yellow Emperor and some of his sage physicians on medical issues; the emperor's questions encompass every possible aspect of diagnostics, pathology, acupuncture, and moxibution, including both theory and practice, and the sage teachers give detailed explanation on each topic.

Another important classic is the Nanjing, or Classic of Difficult Issues which is also referred to as Huangdi bashiyi nanjing, or the Yellow Emperor's Classic of the Eighty-one Difficult Issues. According to the medical tradition starting from the Shiji (91 BC), this book is a work of Bien Que, a physician who is supposed to have flourished sometime between the sixth and third centuries B.C. Later, the Nanjing was added to the Yellow Emperor tradition and was assigned to the Yellow Emperor himself. Until very recently, the Nanjing was thought to be a commentary to the Huangdi neijing, elaborating on certain obscure passages and issues from it. The difficult issues, however, despite their apparent similarity, cannot be found in the Huangdi neijing; in many cases they in fact do shed light on obscure parts of the Huangdi neijing, but this is due to the fact that the Nanjing explains medical theory and practice in a much more clear and lucid way than the Huangdi neijing. The homogeneous structure and content of the Nanjing confirms that it is not a collection of thoughts and ideas, as it is often the case with early texts in Chinese literature, but was written by one author and, therefore, belongs to one time period. Most of the Western scholars date the book anywhere from the first to third century AD; in general, their calculations are based on the dating of the Shanghan lun, written by Zhang Ji (142-220), which has been influenced by the Nanjing

Unlike the Nanjing, the Huangdi neijing is a text that was put together over a span of several centuries by a number of individuals; one can finds esoteric and self-cultivating cosmology next to Confucian discussions on ethical considerations; there are highly rational and scientific arguments a few pages after appraisal of physiological alchemy; certain parts of the book may go back to pre-Qin times and other parts are from the Tang dynasty. There has been an extensive debate over the last few decades regarding the authorship and dating of this book, yet, to present day, no generally accepted and solidly based theory exists. Since it is a compilation, it is extremely hard to label it with a particular date. The title first appears in the "Yiwenzhi" chapter of the Hanshu, among the bibliography of medical classics. Of course, there is no way of knowing, whether that title referred to the same content and, similarly, other titles could have included parts of the present text. The name Huangdi neijing is generally prefixed to the titles of four books, Suwen, Lingshu, Taisu, and Mingtang. We do not have a Han copy of any of the texts and all of the extant texts have undergone further editing and revision after the Han. There are also two other texts, the Jiayijing (256 - 282) and the Maijing (ca. 280) which were strongly influenced by the original version of the text. [9] This shows that the Huangdi neijing was already present at least during the Latter Han, however, it is very hard to establish to what extent was this original text damaged by later revisions. A detailed analysis of the various time layers in the Huangdi neijing and the dating of these text fragments is a task far beyond the scope of this paper.

Medical theory has always been traced back to the Nanjing and Huangdi neijing which served as an absolute standard for all works after the Han; this kind of continuous authority, produced as a result of the well-known traditionalism of Chinese scholarship, resulted in an unusually homogenous and coherent conceptual structure. On this part of the world, just like in other ancient societies, the idea of evolution worked seemingly backwards, the original settings were the best and ever since the times of antiquity everything has been deteriorating. While in the modern, "scientific" West it is customary to think that the newer a thing is the better, in traditional Chinese thought this appears to be just the opposite; a new thing could be justified and accepted if one could prove that it has been already mentioned and thought of in ancient times. As a result of this traditionalistic approach, medicine in China has been regarded as a body of knowledge which has undergone very little, if any, changes through the span of history.

The Mawangdui Documents

In 1973, a large number of silk and a smaller number of bamboo slip documents were excavated from Tomb Three of the Mawangdui site at Changsha, Hunan. The burial is dated to 168 B.C., providing us with an absolute date for the latest time span of all the manuscripts in the tomb. The total of 130,000 characters included the copies of the Yijing, the Laozi, Chunqiu shiyu, as well as other manuscripts on history, geography, military science, philosophy, astronomy, divination, and medicine. =The medical texts, representing every aspect of healing art in ancient China, amount to more than 23,000 characters, constituting one sixth of all the writings; the 14 individual medical documents, following the arrangement of the bibliographic catalogue in the Hanshu, can be grouped into four main categories:

• Classics of Medicine (Yi Jing)
• Collection of Prescriptions (Jing Fang)
• Treatises on the Bedroom (Fang Zhong)
• Methods and Prescriptions for Immortality (Shen Xian)

It is fortunate that all of the four categories in the Hanshu are represented among the excavated materials. The diversity of texts included in the Mawangdui medical corpus gives us an unusually complete picture of the state of medical literature in the Warring States and Qin-Han periods.Despite the wide variety of documents, the Mawangdui corpus presents us with an essentially consistent ideology; this is an important evidence that the texts are part of a larger tradition and not just individual fragments.

What makes these documents so rare and valuable is that the exact date of the burial and the way name-taboo characters are used or omitted give us a solid chronological basis so unusual in this field. Furthermore, since these manuscripts have been out of circulation during the centuries of changes, they allow us to lift up the veil covering the earliest phase of development of medical thought during the Eastern Han dynasty.

The Mawangdui documents present us an ideology remarkably different from the conventionally accustomed view of medical theory which, in its earliest form, is represented by the Nanjing and Huangdi neijing. The more "primitive" and unstructured doctrines of the excavated material remind us of the grand process of standardization that took place sometime during the Latter Han. If we compare the Mawangdui medical corpus with the classics, a number of striking distinctions confirm the gap in time and ideology.

Standardization of Chinese thought during the Western Han

The standardization of terminology, theory, and practical technique during the early Han was by no means limited to the medical world; it was a much broader process, involving many aspects of contemporary culture, including philosophy and literature. "In sharp contrast with the Qin the Han dynasty, while continuing the political heritage of the former, combined in its world-conception the idea of the absolute power of the Emperor with the recognition of the necessity of the metaphysical norms of love and duty, thus realizing, perhaps for the first time in Chinese history, Confucius' ancient ideal of the Sovereign who, mandated by Heaven, carried out its will: to govern the people by spiritual power which by its very nature is beneficent and stimulating.

The period of early Han is the time of general standardization in Chinese culture; it is the time of classification and standardization of the classics. The study of the classics was a central issue and was promoted by the emperor himself; in 191 B.C. emperor Hui abolished the law proscribing the possession of books, promulgated by the Qin in 213 B.C.; in 136 B.C. emperor Wu established, advised by the leading scholar Dong Zhongshu, the institution of the wujing boshi (erudities for the five classics), raising Confucianism to be the only officially recognized doctrine. The reign of emperor Wu of the Han is known in Chinese literature as the period of tongyi sixiang, or the ideological unification; despite his affinity towards occult and esoteric teachings, through promoting Confucianism and the study of classics, he made a big step towards the unification and rationalization of Chinese thought. The need for such reforms was present in the political and intellectual world, the changes did not merely represent the literary interest or attraction of the emperor; "the fact that two councils for the discussions of the discrepancies in the Classics were held within comparatively so short a time, the first in the Shiquguo in 51 B.C., the second in the Baihuguan in 79 A.D., points out the unsettled state of affairs in the world of Classical studies during the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties;" even the fierce conflict between the New Text and Old Text schools shows us how important it was considered to have a united and consistent approach to intellectual thought.

During the Han dynasty, Confucian thought became a great synthetic religion which, despite all the superstition and mysticism fused into it, was a highly rationalized body of thought. This rationalistic system, until the first decades of the Western Han, was counter-balanced by "other, rival, doctrines, in particular Taoism and the School of Law;" later on, these schools lost from their influence and attraction and Confucian rationalism became the dominant force in politics and culture. This is what Needham calls a "Naturalist-Confucian synthesis during the Han." The study of the classics was further emphasized in the years of the reign of emperor Xuan (73-49 B.C.), twelve scholars representing twelve different schools of interpretation taught the Five Classics at the Grand School in the New Text tradition; the Old Text versions were not recognized officially until a little later, although many scholars of the first century knew and had studied them.[

The process of ideological and intellectual consolidation was present in all aspects of contemporary Chinese thought; the grand scale unification also involved the standardization of terminology and technical vocabulary. John S. Major presents a clear and detailed analysis on the evolution of the nomenclature of winds and directions in this period, reaching the conclusion that "the nomenclature of winds and directions in the early Han was still somewhat confused, but also that the confusion was rapidly diminishing as the manifold correlations of Han cosmology were becoming standardized." Major also points out the cosmological significance of Gao You's (c. 168-212) commentary that gives a correlation to the eight musical instruments as well. "This may seem a trivial correlation to make until one remembers how seriously music was taken in ancient China for its symbolic and numerological qualities. Thus introducing musical instruments in this context opens the door for further cosmological integration, so that the system will embrace not only time and space, yin and yang, the Five Phases, and the eight triagrams, but the numerology of the pentatonic and duodecatonic scales. Thus the system approaches the all-embracing syncretic organic cosmology, containing an appropriately detailed set of prescriptions for human conduct, that was to have its full flowering in the works of Dong Zhongshu within a few decades of the writing of the Huainanzi."

One of the spectacular manifestations of this standardization process in this period is the compilation of Dong Zhongshu's Chunqiu fanlu, a work in the New Text tradition which, despite its later interpolations, remains to be one of the greatest examples of correlative thinking and the system of correspondences. It is a work extends the theories of Yin-Yang and five phases to virtually every aspect of human existence, including arts, music, food, politics, philosophy etc., creating a consistently integrated system very much in the tradition seen in medical literature starting from the Nanjing, Huangdi neijing, Shanghanlun and other texts during and after the Han dynasty.