Guo Yanjin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Guo Yanjin is the seventh-generation inheritor of the Pingle Guo family bone-setting method. Over the years she has combined the medical techniques handed down in her family with modern medical technology, skilfully applying the Chinese medical principles of theory, method, formula and materia medica together with the traditional Pingle bone-setting manipulations to treat bone and joint injuries; she is particularly skilled in treating pain of the neck, shoulders, lower back and legs, avascular necrosis of the femoral head, senile osteoarticular diseases and post-traumatic sequelae. Within the regional tradition and school record of TCM Bone-setting Therapy in Luoyang, Henan: In ancient agricultural society, the incidence of bone injuries was very high, and bone injuries were a common and frequently occurring ailment. At that time, medical conditions were very poor, and transportation in rural areas and frontier settlements was blocked off; once a fracture occurred, seeking treatment was extremely difficult. Thus practice produced true knowledge, and need produced talent: in almost every somewhat larger village or town, one or two local doctors and local methods for treating bone injuries would emerge, and bone-setting therapy became a Chinese medical therapy with wide distribution and a multitude of schools across China. With social development and the broadening and deepening of academic exchange, Chinese medical bone-injury therapy shows a tendency toward convergence; however, the regional characteristics, manipulative characteristics, and medicinal characteristics of certain famous traumatology experts and famous traumatology schools still remain. Compared with Western orthopedic medicine, Chinese bone-setting therapy still has its unique advantages. Luoyang bone-setting originated from the Guo family of Pingle Village, Mengjin County, Luoyang City, and took shape during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty. In 1985, Guo Chunyuan, a fifth-generation successor of the Pingle Guo school's bone-setting method and former president of the Zhengzhou Orthopedic Hospital, founded the Shenzhen Pingle Orthopedics and Traumatology Hospital.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

She is female, of the Han ethnic group, born in November 1949 in Mengjin County, Henan Province. Born into a family of Chinese medicine bone-setting practitioners and influenced by her family, she resolved from childhood to carry on the cause of Chinese medicine. She has published more than ten papers in professional journals and collected volumes such as Chinese Journal of Traditional Medical Traumatology and Orthopaedics, China Journal of Orthopaedics and Traumatology and the Proceedings of the Third High-Level Forum on the Academic Transmission of Renowned Chinese Medicine Scholars. Within the documented technical tradition of TCM Bone-setting Therapy in Luoyang, Henan: Traditional Chinese medicine bone-setting therapy is also known as "shangke" (traumatology) or "gu shang ke" (bone and injury medicine, orthopedics and traumatology). First, it has a distinctive understanding of bone physiology and the pathology of bone injuries in the light of traditional Chinese medicine theory; second, it makes ingenious use of manipulative techniques; and third, it has distinctive characteristics in its use of medicines. The combination of these three points often forms a unique therapy and a famous school. Luoyang bone-setting is a folk Chinese medical therapy for treating bone and injury diseases, also known as "Pingle Guo-school bone-setting," "Pingle bone-setting," or "White Horse Temple bone-setting." Generation after generation, the Guo family practiced medicine in their hometown, transmitting it secretly within the clan; the several generations of successors thereafter all upheld the ancestral teachings and devoted themselves to the development and innovation of Chinese medical bone-injury medicine, raising the long-standing Pingle bone-setting from a simple folk healing art that treated the sick and saved lives into a Chinese bone-injury science that benefits humanity. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, it flourished for five generations and was renowned for its unique therapeutic efficacy and noble medical ethics. Through more than two hundred years of practice and innovation by successive generations of successors, Luoyang bone-setting has become the largest academic school of Chinese medical orthopedics and traumatology in China, forming a complete set of bone-setting theories and methods — the three principles (holistic syndrome differentiation, equal weight to sinews and bones, and combined internal and external treatment) and the four methods (manipulative techniques for treating injuries, immobilization methods, medicinal treatment, and rehabilitative exercise) — with characteristics such as interdependence with the cause of Chinese medicine, a legendary quality, scientific validity, systematic completeness, practical applicability, and a wide scope of dissemination. Guo Chunyuan wrote "The Pingle Guo School's Bone-Setting Method" and "New Compilation on Bone-Setting by Hereditary Physicians." He vigorously developed and spread the Pingle bone-setting medical art; for more than twenty years, he and his disciples and students treated more than one million patients with bone and injury diseases in Shenzhen. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The three principles": Whole-symptom differentiation, equal attention to sinew and bone, and treatment from both inside and outside. "The four methods": Manual reduction, fixation, medication and rehabilitation, treated as one closed loop rather than a single procedure. "The theory of balance": The third-generation inheritor extended three principles and four methods into seven principles and six methods, and built a theory of balance around qi and blood. "Fixation with early movement": Splints are adjusted as swelling changes and active rehabilitation begins from the first stage.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a national representative bearer of Traditional Chinese Medicine Bone-Setting Therapy (the Pingle Guo family bone-setting method), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. The research projects she has led have repeatedly won awards. She spares no effort in training successor talent.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Guo Yanjin · National Representative Bearer Archive