classical texts

By Dr. Edward Neal, MD
First published in Journal of Chinese Medicine
Issue 125 (February 2021)

By the 1980s, a majority of early Chinese texts had been placed on computer databases. This undertaking allowed new, potentially paradigm-shifting, approaches to classical text research. While the full potential of this research has yet to be realised, information discovered to date significantly alters our picture of the early practices and theories of Chinese medicine and presents a wide-ranging collection of new research and clinical opportunities to be explored. This information has the potential to change the way Chinese medicine is understood, taught and practised in significant ways. As such, it affirms the profession by providing new challenges and opportunities and at the same time presents unique challenges by requiring the reevaluation of core concepts. Part one of this article reviews work done over the past 20 years on the Huángdì nèijīng and presents some of the findings discovered using these research approaches. Part two will review the clinical methods that have been developed from this research.

By Dr. Edward Neal, MD
First published in Journal of Chinese Medicine
Issue 126 (June 2021)

The Huángdì nèijīng is the primary source text for the entire profession of Chinese medicine. Despite this central importance, fully implementing a comprehensive clinical method based on its principles and theories has remained elusive. Because of this, the full potential of these principles and theories has remained underutilised in clinical practice, particularly in the West. Over the past twenty years, new approaches to classical text-based research have been developed using the techniques of classical text-based archaeology (see part 1 of this series of articles in issue 125 of the Journal of Chinese Medicine). This research methodology has led to the development of Nèijīng nature-based medicine, a comprehensive clinical practice based on the writings, principles and theories of the Huángdì nèijīng. In this article, I introduce basic principles of Nèijīng nature-based medicine. In a subsequent article in this series, I will introduce technical aspects of this practice.

By Dr. Edward Neal, MD
First published in Journal of Chinese Medicine
Issue 125 (February 2021)

By the 1980s, a majority of early Chinese texts had been placed on computer databases. This undertaking allowed new, potentially paradigm-shifting, approaches to classical text research. While the full potential of this research has yet to be realised, information discovered to date significantly alters our picture of the early practices and theories of Chinese medicine and presents a wide-ranging collection of new research and clinical opportunities to be explored. This information has the potential to change the way Chinese medicine is understood, taught and practised in significant ways. As such, it affirms the profession by providing new challenges and opportunities and at the same time presents unique challenges by requiring the reevaluation of core concepts. Part one of this article reviews work done over the past 20 years on the Huángdì nèijīng and presents some of the findings discovered using these research approaches. Part two will review the clinical methods that have been developed from this research.