TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods

Ⅸ-2Traditional MedicineXincai, HenanBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The Mao Family Jishitang therapy for tuoguju (gangrene with sloughing of the bone) began in the late Qing dynasty and has a history of more than one hundred years. The founder, known as Lao Han Xian'er, once held a post in the Qing imperial court; his son-in-law opened a pharmacy and practiced medicine there, adopting the shop name Mao Family Jishitang (Hall for Universal Salvation), and became renowned in the local area.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Mao Family Jishitang therapy for tuoguju is based on the statement and viewpoint of the ancient medical work Dongtian Aozhi (Secret Purport of the Cave Heavens) that “the arising of gangrene of the digits occurs only at the ends of the four extremities, where qi and blood cannot circulate in full — if this is not deficiency, what is it?” Combining this with the family's clinical experience, the therapy holds that tuoguju is mostly caused by contraction of cold-damp pathogens together with deficiency and depletion of yang qi in the spleen, kidney and other zang-fu organs, leading to blockage of the channels and collaterals, so that over time the bones wither and the marrow dries up. The specific therapies of the Mao Family Jishitang method include the method of warming the channels and dissipating cold; the method of invigorating blood and resolving stasis; the method of clearing heat and detoxifying; the method of warming the kidney and strengthening the spleen; the method of dual regulation of yi and gui (the liver and kidney); the method of percolating dampness and promoting urination; the method of unblocking the collaterals and relieving pain; the methods of tonifying qi and nourishing blood and of invigorating blood; the method of dual supplementation of qi and blood; the method of generating the new and dispelling stasis; the external method of fumigation and washing; channel-based point-selection therapy; Taiyi needle therapy; thunder-fire needle therapy; the method of warming and moving qi and blood and dispersing yin cold; meridian point-injection therapy; the method of warming yang and restoring the pulse and of supporting the endangered and securing against collapse; the method of securing the root and restoring the origin while invigorating blood and unblocking the collaterals; the method of warming yang and assisting yin to balance yin and yang; and the method of searching the channels and collaterals for residual pathogens.

Treatment by stage and type

The disease is divided by stage — ischaemic, trophic, necrotic, recovery — and each stage met with its own set of methods.

External fumigation and washing

The affected limb is fumigated and washed with herbal decoction alongside internal powders — warming without exhausting the patient.

Coordinating liver and kidney

Spleen and kidney are treated together, since the disease rests on yang deficiency rather than on blockage alone.

Taiyi and Leihuo needling

Two needling-moxibustion techniques using thick purpose-made needles to warm the limbs and dispel cold.

The Mao Jishitang hall at Xincai

The Xincai base, where modern inheritors set aside the rule of keeping the craft within the family and turned the formulas into pills, powders and capsules.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

On this basis, the therapy classifies tuoguju into patterns such as yang deficiency with cold congelation (ischemic stage), qi stagnation and blood stasis (nutritional-disorder stage), damp-heat with exuberant toxin (necrosis stage), deficiency of both qi and blood (recovery stage), and yin deficiency with toxic heat, and applies treatment based on pattern differentiation, using more than twenty treatment methods such as warming the channels and dissipating cold, invigorating blood and resolving stasis, and warming the kidney and strengthening the spleen, with Chinese medicines taken internally and powder applied externally to the wound, striving to relieve the patient's suffering relatively quickly and achieve good therapeutic results.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Mao Family Jishitang therapy for tuoguju is a traditional Chinese medical therapy for tuoguju that the Mao family explored and summarized through long-term clinical diagnosis and treatment. Its area of transmission centers on the Mao Family Jishitang in Xincai County, Henan Province, and extends to more than one hundred counties and cities in Henan Province and to parts of Hubei and Anhui provinces. Inheritors in the modern era broke with the ancestral rule of transmitting only within the family, systematically collating and researching the hereditary secret formulas, and in particular made innovations and developments in the use of traditional Chinese medicine to treat difficult and complicated conditions such as tuoguju (vasculitis); especially in the treatment of thromboangiitis obliterans they have developed pure Chinese medicinal preparations in the form of pills, powders and capsules suited to different conditions, with marked efficacy. The Mao Family Jishitang therapy for tuoguju originated in the imperial court yet has taken root among the people; it enriches the theories and traditional methods of Chinese medicine, has marked efficacy, is simple in method and low in cost, causes little pain to patients, and is easy to popularize in clinical application. It effectively serves the people's livelihood and has economic, social and cultural value, and offers a certain reference value for research on the history of imperial-court medicine and the development of folk medicine. Mao Shunqing (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, of the Han ethnic group, born in October 1939, from Xincai County, Henan Province. He was born into a family of famous physicians; from childhood he received family instruction, studied medicine with his parents, and read extensively in Chinese medical books. He joined the army in 1959; after being demobilized and returning home, he built the Mao Family Jishitang into a well-known Chinese medicine establishment integrating medical treatment, pharmaceutical production and scientific research. He has engaged in clinical research for more than fifty years, publishing or issuing more than thirty papers and treatises, and has applied for several invention patents. At the same time, he has devoted himself to teaching apprentices and transmitting the art. He is a representative inheritor of the item Traditional Chinese Medical Therapies (Mao Family Jishitang Therapy for Tuoguju) in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. His eight apprentices have all established their own practices, centered on the Mao Family Jishitang in the county town of Xincai, and are distributed mainly across 109 counties and cities of Henan Province, as well as in Hubei and Anhui.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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