Hiding in Plain Sight-ancient Chinese anatomy.


Journal

Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007)
ISSN: 1932-8494
Titre abrégé: Anat Rec (Hoboken)
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101292775

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
05 2022
Historique:
revised: 23 05 2020
received: 21 01 2020
accepted: 29 05 2020
pubmed: 3 9 2020
medline: 13 4 2022
entrez: 3 9 2020
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

For thousands of years, scientists have studied human anatomy by dissecting bodies. Our knowledge of their findings is limited, however, both by the subsequent loss of many of the oldest texts, and by a tendency toward a Eurocentric perspective in medicine. As a discipline, anatomy tends to be much more familiar with ancient Greek texts than with those from India, China, or Persia. Here, we show that the Mawangdui medical texts, entombed in the Mawangdui burial site in Changsha, China 168 BCE, are the oldest surviving anatomical atlas in the world. These medical texts both predate and inform the later acupuncture texts which have been the foundation for acupuncture practice in the subsequent two millennia. The skills necessary to interpret them are diverse, requiring the researcher firstly to read the original Chinese, and secondly to perform the anatomical investigations that allow a re-viewing of the structures that the texts refer to. Acupuncture meridians are considered to be esoteric in nature, but these texts are clearly descriptions of the physical body. As such, they represent a previously hidden chapter in the history of anatomy, and a new perspective on acupuncture.

Identifiants

pubmed: 32875736
doi: 10.1002/ar.24503
doi:

Types de publication

Historical Article Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

1201-1214

Informations de copyright

© 2020 The Authors. The Anatomical Record published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association for Anatomy.

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Auteurs

Vivien Shaw (V)

School of Medical Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales.

Rui Diogo (R)

Department of Anatomy, Howard University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Isabelle Catherine Winder (IC)

School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales.

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