TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods

Ⅸ-2Traditional MedicineChenzhou, HunanBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

With the changing of the times, the family moved successively through Qingzhou and Daozhou, relocating to Chenzhou in the early 20th century, where it took root.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Chen's Apitherapy is a folk therapy with distinctive characteristics that, under the guidance of traditional Chinese meridian theory, combines bee-sting therapy and the use of bee products as medicine, uniting the three methods of medicinals, needling, and moxibustion. The Chen ancestors began beekeeping during the Kangxi reign and used bee products to treat illness. Chenzhou is located in the southeast of Hunan Province; its abundant vegetation includes a large number of flowering plants, which is favorable for the development of beekeeping. Because the climate is humid and hot and the forests are rife with miasma, diseases such as rheumatic and rheumatoid arthritis, gout, cervical spondylosis, periarthritis of the shoulder, facial paralysis, lumbar spine disease, and ocular myasthenia gravis are common in southern Hunan. Chen's Apitherapy requires only a bee box, tweezers, and live honeybees to administer treatment. Its basic needling techniques are divided into point pricking, scattered pricking, perpendicular pricking, flick pricking, and oblique pricking, among others. It inherits and develops the doctrine of Chinese meridian theory and is one of the folk therapies with unique characteristics. Chen Wei, the eighth-generation inheritor of Chen's Apitherapy, systematized and refined bee-sting therapy and established apitherapy treatment rooms. The main characteristics of Chen's Apitherapy include simple tools, refined techniques, and marked effects, making it easy to promote in society. It has shown good efficacy against diseases common in southern Hunan such as gout, facial paralysis, cervical spondylosis, and periarthritis of the shoulder. It has also developed a medicated beeswax poultice method using beeswax soaked in Chinese medicinals, which is widely used in the rehabilitation treatment of various pain conditions, rheumatism, rheumatoid disease, gout, diabetes, and hypertension. In addition, inheritors of Chen's Apitherapy have joined with institutions such as Hunan University of Chinese Medicine to promote apitherapy techniques, develop bee products, and establish apitherapy training schools. They have also cooperated with the Zhonghe Sub-Health Service Center, guided by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, to establish TCM apitherapy training classes, training more than 400 people annually for the public, including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and beekeepers. Apitherapy is a natural therapy with low economic cost and broad indications, and it has received increasing attention within China. Clinics across the country employing Chen's apitherapy techniques are found in 28 provinces, cities, counties, and districts. Chen's Apitherapy has good therapeutic effects on many chronic and geriatric diseases, and is of important practical significance for promoting Chinese medicine culture, enriching diagnostic and therapeutic methods, improving the diagnostic and treatment system, and advancing the integration of treatment with health preservation and recuperation.

Point stinging

A single bee sting placed precisely on the point and withdrawn — the simplest of the stinging methods.

Scattered stinging

Stings placed across an area rather than fixed points, suited to pain and numbness spread over a region.

Direct, flicked and oblique stinging

Stings differentiated by angle and delivery, completing the basic repertoire with point and scatter.

The point map

A chart marking acupoints together with non-acupoint sites, devised for bee stinging alone.

Herbal beeswax plaster

Beeswax steeped in herbs and applied as a plaster — slow, gentle and non-irritating, used in rehabilitation for pain and chronic illness.

The three-way combination

Stinging, bee products and herbal wax used together, widening the treatable list to more than forty conditions.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Originally, following the Chen ancestors through Qingzhou and Daozhou, Chen's Apitherapy moved to Chenzhou in Hunan in the early 20th century and took root; from then on it was practiced with the Chenzhou area of southern Hunan as its center. Chenzhou's humid, hot climate and miasmic forests make dampness-heat-related conditions such as rheumatism, rheumatoid disease, and gout especially common there, which aligns well with bee-sting therapy's strength in dispelling dampness and freeing the collaterals. Over the past decade or more, clinics in 28 provinces, cities, counties, and districts across the country have adopted this technique. The Beihu District Culture Center in Chenzhou has also run multiple training classes, whose students include doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and beekeepers; the beekeepers are at the same time participants in the art of beekeeping itself, so that treatment and beekeeping support each other.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Grounding himself in the doctrine of Chinese meridians and the theory of treatment based on pattern differentiation, he explored the secrets of bee-sting therapy, devoted himself to studying the medical effects of the body's acupoints, and created a 'point map' specific to bee-sting therapy that combines acupoints with non-acupoint points. The tenth-generation inheritors Chen Haiyan and Zu Xiangmeng focused on transmission and innovation, establishing the triple therapy of 'bee-sting, Chinese medicinal bee products, and medicated beeswax,' expanding the range of difficult and miscellaneous conditions treatable to more than 40 types, with an average of about 9,300 patients treated each year. This heritage project has broken through the limitations of family transmission and actively takes on disciples. At present, more than 200 disciples have been formally taken on, and 30 of them have followed their masters for more than ten years.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods (Chenzhou, Hunan) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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