TCM Bone-setting Therapy
01 · Historical Records
Palace bone-setting is a purely traditional Chinese medicine treatment system based on the bone-setting section of the Chaoban Chu (Bone-Setting Office) of the Imperial Stud of the Qing Dynasty. Aimed at orthopedic ailments such as injuries from falls and blows, it relies primarily on manipulative treatment, supplemented by Chinese medicine, herbal drugs, and traditional Chinese medical instruments. Wu Dinghuan, professor at the Huguo Temple Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine affiliated with Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and a successor of Xia Xiwu, the imperial physician of the late Qing Dynasty, inherited and carried forward the academic thought and cultural essence of palace bone-setting, broadly integrating it with clinical practice, and achieved good clinical efficacy and social benefits.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
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. The main characteristic of the palace bone-setting manipulative technique is that "the stimulus is felt externally, ingenuity is born internally, the hand follows the turning of the mind, and the technique issues from the hand." When a technique is applied, it is heavy yet not sluggish and light yet not floating; "only when the patient does not feel its pain can it be called a proper technique." In treating fractures, the palace bone-setting technique emphasizes the treatment concept of "correcting, adjusting, joining, and solidifying"; in treating sinew injuries, its most important characteristics are "lightness, gentleness, penetration, and dexterity."
Touch without, skill born within
Skill arises from contact on the outside and is born within the hand: the method follows the hand as the hand follows the mind.
Correcting, settling, joining and securing
Four separate aims — straighten the deviation, settle the displacement, join the ends and fill the gap — each with its own manual action.
Light, gentle, penetrating and clever
Sinew injury calls for light, gentle, penetrating and clever handling, the opposite in weight to the bone cases.
Warming medicated compresses
The school uses internal pills, external pastes such as the warming bone compress, and paper splints, and Liu Gang modernised the dosage forms.
The imperial stable veterinary bone-setters
The system descends from the bone-setting office of the Qing imperial stables and became a distinct school over five imperial generations.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
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. Through the continuous inheritance and development by five generations of imperial physicians and modern physicians, a unique academic school has been formed. The physical items used in the palace bone-setting system fall into three categories: oral traditional Chinese medicines (such as Dieda Zijin Dan and Jiangu Zhitong Wan), external traditional Chinese medicines (such as orthopedic fumigating medicines and Dieda Wanying Gao), and external instruments (such as splint sets made of yuanshu paper).
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine bone-setting therapy are expressed in three aspects. For this traditional Chinese medical therapy to break through the single-line, fragile chain of family transmission and flourish, it must be protected. Liu Gang (official archival record of an associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnic group, born in November 1952, a native of Feicheng City, Shandong Province. Chief physician. He specializes in the comprehensive treatment of cervical spondylosis, lumbar disease, fractures of the limbs, and joint dislocations using traditional internal and external treatment methods. Building on the traditional bone-injury fumigating medicines and Dieda Wanying Gao, he developed external hot-compress and poultice prescriptions suited to different diseases and different body parts; he used Chinese medicines taken orally and applied externally to treat femoral head necrosis, with remarkable efficacy. He led projects such as "A Collection of the Xia School's Palace Bone-Setting Manipulative Techniques" (video recording) and "the reform of dosage forms of orthopedic fumigating medicines." He serves as a visiting professor at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. He has taken Ye Haidong, Hu Yongwen, Yang Yanguo, Zhao Huanyu, Li Pengchao, Zhen Pengchao, Wang Qi, Niu Zhijun, Lin Gang, Wang Lei, and Zhou Qiao as disciples. Representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project "Traditional Chinese Medicine Bone-Setting Therapy (palace bone-setting)". He was named a famous veteran practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine of Beijing.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Guo Weihuai 01-0212
- Sun Shuchun 01-0213
- Shi Qi 01-0214
- Liu Gang 03-1446
- Luo Jindian 03-1447
- Shi Yangshan 03-1448
- Guo Yanjin 03-1449
- Wu Chengmou 04-1945
- Zhang Yuzhu 04-1946
- Luo Sulan 05-2951
- Su Jicheng 05-2952
- Shi Yinyu 05-2953
- Zhang Yanyou 05-2954
- Guo Yanxing 05-2955
- Liao Huaizhang 05-2956
- Li Feiyue
- Zhan Hongsheng
- Lin Zishun
- Zhu Liguo
- Li Tao
- Zhang Yunzhi
- Guo Jiayi
- Zhu Huaiyu
- Xu Zesan
- Zhu Long
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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