TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods

Ⅸ-2Traditional MedicineNanjingshiqinhuai, JiangsuBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine has a long and distant history. Beginning in the Qing dynasty, it has passed through ten generations of transmission and has a history of more than three hundred years to this day. In 1956, the eighth-generation inheritor donated free of charge to the Nanjing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine the Ding family's hereditary Chinese medical secret formulas, medicines, instruments and techniques accumulated over a century, and the hospital's anorectal department was founded on this basis.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Among these techniques, the Ding family's necrotizing therapy for hemorrhoids improved the ancient dosage forms and treatment methods, raising therapeutic efficacy; the traditional thread-ligation therapy was improved so that, while preserving the anus's original functions, it avoids or greatly reduces the trauma caused by high complex anal fistulas and improves patients' quality of life; the traditional ligation therapy for hemorrhoids was improved into the segmented serrated ligation therapy, which has largely resolved postoperative complications of circumferential hemorrhoids such as anal stenosis, anal defects and mucosal prolapse; and the technique of Chinese medicinal enema and drip infusion was improved, so that through directional pressurization the medicine disperses more effectively into lesions in the right half of the colon. The Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine possesses more than ten Chinese medicinal formulas and preparations for internal and external use, which have been in use for several hundred years, with good efficacy and few side effects; using the traditional non-surgical methods of Chinese medicine, it treats more than thirty kinds of anorectal and other diseases, benefiting nearly 60,000 anorectal patients every year. Members of the Ding family were trained in family instruction from childhood and have a deep scholarly heritage. Under the explicit guidance of the Ding Family Admonitions to Children and Grandchildren that “a great physician must be both consummate in skill and sincere in heart”, the sons of the Ding family succeeded their fathers in the profession and carried forward the art of benevolence; after much tempering they won renown throughout the land and finally became an eminent family in the medical world. Through the dedicated efforts of several generations, the National Anorectal Medical Center of Chinese Medicine at the Nanjing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has been established as a national construction unit for advantaged specialties of Chinese medicine, and the inheritors of the Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine have become known to their peers both in China and abroad.

The Ding withering-haemorrhoid method

An improved version of the classical withering agent dries and sheds the haemorrhoid without damaging surrounding tissue.

Segmented dentate ligation

Ligatures are placed in a segmented dentate line, preserving skin bridges and avoiding stenosis, defect and mucosal prolapse after circumferential cases.

Improved thread-drawing for fistula

High and complex anal fistulas are treated by a revised threading technique that spares continence and cuts trauma.

Directed herbal instillation

Pressure directs the decoction to lesions in the right colon, treating deep bowel disease without operation.

The great physician must be sincere

A family injunction requiring sincerity as the condition of practice, the inner discipline holding the craft together over ten generations.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In the past, Ding family practitioners were mostly spread across the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, in Hankou, Wuhu, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Jintan, Changzhou, Wujin, Taizhou, Taixing, Qingjiang, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine takes the surgical tradition of Chinese medicine transmitted by the Ding family, who practiced south of the Yangtze, as its thread, and the academic thought, medicines and diagnostic and treatment methods of the Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine as its system. It is a traditional Chinese medical therapy that applies the holistic view of Chinese medicine, combining pattern differentiation with disease identification, adopts an integrated multidisciplinary model, and uses the Ding school's series of distinctive techniques to treat anorectal diseases. At present, the Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine has spread to more than thirty provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) of China. The Ding school's techniques, such as the necrotizing therapy for hemorrhoids, thread ligation, ligation therapy and enema therapy, have been developed and innovated in the course of transmission and have formed systematic operating standards. The state has successively established three inheritance studios for the inheritors of the Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine as nationally renowned veteran experts of Chinese medicine; the inheritors have also established two museums, one in Nanjing and one in the family's ancestral home. The Ding school of hemorrhoid medicine not only has considerable scientific value but is also imbued with Eastern philosophical thought; its academic thought and theoretical system still guide clinical practice today, and it has a certain influence both in China and abroad. Its method of administering medicines internally and externally is simple, safe and reliable, sparing some patients the pain of surgery and reducing medical costs; it has economic and social value.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods (Nanjingshiqinhuai, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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