Luo Sulan

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Chief physician and seventh-generation transmitter of the Luo family bone-setting method. She studied under her grandmother Luo Youming and her father Luo Jindian, and has mastered the essence of the family's inherited therapy. Within the regional tradition and school record of TCM Bone-setting Therapy in Zhaoyang, Beijing: 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. The transmission of the Luo school's bone-setting method has continued for more than three hundred years. Its origin is closely connected with the bone-injury trade in southern Beijing in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties: first, folk healers skilled in injury plasters and manipulative bone reduction formed a lineage in the streets and lanes around Shichahai and Shuangqiao; later, the family transmission of the clan of Luo Youming condensed it into a school. Luo Youming, an important successor and outstanding representative of the Luo school's bone-setting method, won broad recognition from the world for his noble medical ethics of doing good and helping others, healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, and seeking neither fame nor profit, together with his superb medical skill; he was praised as the "sage hand at bone-setting," the "sage hand of orthopedics and traumatology," the "sage hand with a benevolent heart," and the "good physician with a benevolent heart." These titles were not conferred by officials; they were a reputation accumulated over three generations of setting bones and restoring people to health.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in August 1951 in Xiayi County, Henan Province. In more than forty years of clinical practice she has cured tens of thousands of patients from China and abroad. She is chief editor of Luoshi Zhenggufa (The Luo Family Bone-Setting Method, Chinese and English editions) and Luo Youming Yi'an (Medical Case Records of Luo Youming), and associate chief editor of the fascicles Luoyouming Zhenggufa, Shuangqiao Zhenggu Laotai Luo Youming, and Yaozhui Jianpan Tuchuzheng; she has also written articles such as 'Treatment of Femoral Shaft Fractures with Luo Youming's Bone-Setting Method', 'Treatment of Lumbar Disc Herniation with Bone-Setting Manipulation', and 'Theoretical Discussion and Application of the Luo Family Eight Tendon-Setting Methods'. She transmits her skills to her son Li Zhengyi and others. She established the TCM Bone-Setting Department of the Aviation General Hospital, formed a medical team, carried out clinical teaching, and holds regular Luo family bone-setting training courses. Within the documented technical tradition of TCM Bone-setting Therapy in Zhaoyang, Beijing: 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. As an important successor and outstanding representative of the Luo school's bone-setting method, Luo Youming won broad recognition from the world for his noble medical ethics of doing good and helping others, healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, and seeking neither fame nor profit, together with his superb medical skill; he was praised as the "sage hand at bone-setting," the "sage hand of orthopedics and traumatology," the "sage hand with a benevolent heart," and the "good physician with a benevolent heart." Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Reduction by hand": Its manual reduction, joining, fixation and medication were seen as advantages over Western orthopaedics, avoiding operation and shortening recovery. "The eight sinew methods": She set out the eight sinew methods in named form with indications, fixing the order drawn from long practice. "Preparing the external bone liniments": Capsules, tablets and plasters were developed in parallel, with two of the plasters taking an international award. "Teaching films and manuals": Films and manuals in Chinese and English turned a family technique into reproducible teaching material.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of TCM Bone-setting Therapy (Luo Family Bone-Setting Method), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. She was recognized as one of the first batch of academic successors to renowned veteran TCM physicians in Beijing.

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. Luo Sulan · National Representative Bearer Archive