Burnt Pants Decoction
I was going to write a more extensive entry about this, but something came up, and now it's almost midnight, so I'm just going to mention this:
The Shang Han Lun, the classical treatise on "cold damage" that was compiled by the famous Han Dynasty doctor Zhang Ji (Zhong Jing), is still encorporated to a large extent into modern clinical practice. For one thing, its format was largely focused on clinical applicability, and for another, it was based on results -- two things that set it apart from many other classics of Chinese Medicine, which tended to be based more on theory, and, depending on whom you ask, either philosophy or superstition.
Anyway, in the introduction to this edition, the editor provides a few examples of treatments that have not found their way into modern clinical practice.
"One treatment alone stands out as being based on different notions. The formula Burnt Pants Decoction (shao kun san), a decoction made from the ash of the crotch of underpants, seems to based [sic] on an older, magical conception of yin and yang. According to Shang Han Lun, when the body is severely weakened by externally contracted disease, the disease is easily transmitted through sexual intercourse. A condition transmitted to a person in this way is treated by the burnt crotch of the underpants of a person of the opposite sex. This formula is not applied in modern practice."
It bears mentioning, for the benefit of all those who might feel dubious about Chinese Medicine, that this is from a text written over 1800 years ago, and this formula was old fashioned even then. Also, the medical tradition that modern Western Medicine grew out of was embarrassingly far fetched even a few hundred years ago. The fact that the vast majority of formulas and diagnosic methods in the Shang Han Lun are still found to be sensible and effective today ought to allay concerns that acupuncturists are a bunch of underwear burning quacks.
The Shang Han Lun, the classical treatise on "cold damage" that was compiled by the famous Han Dynasty doctor Zhang Ji (Zhong Jing), is still encorporated to a large extent into modern clinical practice. For one thing, its format was largely focused on clinical applicability, and for another, it was based on results -- two things that set it apart from many other classics of Chinese Medicine, which tended to be based more on theory, and, depending on whom you ask, either philosophy or superstition.
Anyway, in the introduction to this edition, the editor provides a few examples of treatments that have not found their way into modern clinical practice.
"One treatment alone stands out as being based on different notions. The formula Burnt Pants Decoction (shao kun san), a decoction made from the ash of the crotch of underpants, seems to based [sic] on an older, magical conception of yin and yang. According to Shang Han Lun, when the body is severely weakened by externally contracted disease, the disease is easily transmitted through sexual intercourse. A condition transmitted to a person in this way is treated by the burnt crotch of the underpants of a person of the opposite sex. This formula is not applied in modern practice."
It bears mentioning, for the benefit of all those who might feel dubious about Chinese Medicine, that this is from a text written over 1800 years ago, and this formula was old fashioned even then. Also, the medical tradition that modern Western Medicine grew out of was embarrassingly far fetched even a few hundred years ago. The fact that the vast majority of formulas and diagnosic methods in the Shang Han Lun are still found to be sensible and effective today ought to allay concerns that acupuncturists are a bunch of underwear burning quacks.