TCM Bone-setting Therapy
01 · Historical Records
4. The Zhang's bone-setting therapy originated in southeastern Zhejiang, a mountainous coastal region with heavy dampness. Zhang's Chinese herbal medicines, taken internally and applied externally, have the effects of removing blood stasis and relieving pain, warming the meridians and unblocking the collaterals, and promoting the healing of fractures, and they have unique efficacy against the damp-evil prevalent along the coast.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Zhang's bone-setting specialty was founded in the third year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty (1823), and has a history of more than 180 years. The Zhang lineage has been transmitted for seven generations, and it has developed a distinctive school in manual bone setting, internal and external application of Chinese herbal medicine, and the use of fir-bark splints to treat rheumatic pain, fractures, and soft-tissue injuries. In the early years of the Daoguang reign, Zhang Zhengchuan learned the art of treating injuries from a wandering martial monk, with an emphasis on external treatment. At the end of the Daoguang reign, his son Zhang Rukui opened the Baochuntang injury clinic in Huangyan. By the third-generation inheritor Zhang Yutang, a complete set of principles, methods, prescriptions, and medicinals for combined internal and external treatment had been summarized; soft-tissue injuries were treated by combining Chinese herbal medicine with the family finger technique of acupoint pressure, and for trauma patients, catechu was decocted into a wash to rinse and clean the wounds, and pearl powder was used to promote tissue regeneration and close the wound. The fifth-generation inheritor Zhang Xianfa integrated modern science and technology, giving the traditional bone-setting therapy a leap forward. The characteristics of the Zhang's bone-setting therapy are as follows: 1. Emphasis on a holistic view, on the relationship between the internal organs and qi and blood, and on palpation diagnosis, with stress on "the hand perceives and the mind comprehends" (shou mo xin hui). 2. Equal attention to sinews and bones. Applying the unique finger-pointing and sinew-manipulating technique, the school summarized the "ten methods of bone setting", namely "palpation and mental comprehension, traction and pulling, rotation and flexion-extension, lifting and pressing, swaying and touching, squeezing and separating the bone fragments, bending and rotating back, massage and manipulation, and acupoint-pointing and sinew-manipulating". The manipulations are gentle, light, steady, and accurate, reaching the state in which "where the method is applied, the patient feels the pain and the bone is already set". 3. The fir-bark splint is subject to strict requirements from the selection of material to fixation, the manufacturing process has been refined, and it has the features of convenience, simplicity, lightness, low allergenicity, strong plasticity, and X-ray permeability, facilitating early functional exercise; used together with the family medicated plaster to reduce swelling and provide fixation, it promotes the healing of fractures. Saving the traditional Zhang's bone-setting therapy is a matter of utmost urgency.
The ten bone-setting methods
Ten manipulations from palpation to sinew work, gentle and steady, aiming that the patient feels only that the bone has come together.
Feeling the injury through the hands
Palpation from light to heavy locates and grades the injury, and takes up roughly a third of the whole procedure.
Making the fir-bark splints
Fir bark splints are light, mouldable, non-allergenic and X-ray transparent, and are combined with the clinic's own paste.
Catechu decoction and pearl powder
Trauma wounds were washed with catechu decoction and closed with pearl powder, cleaning first and healing second.
The wandering monk and Baochuntang
The line began with a wandering monk's outer treatment, opened a clinic in Huangyan and later absorbed modern technology.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Zhang's bone-setting therapy originated in Taizhou in southeastern Zhejiang, a mountainous coastal region with heavy dampness; Zhang's Chinese herbal medicines, taken internally and applied externally, have the effects of removing blood stasis and relieving pain, warming the meridians and unblocking the collaterals, and promoting the healing of fractures, and they have unique efficacy against the damp-evil prevalent along the coast. The Zhang's bone-setting specialty was founded in the third year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty (1823). In the early Daoguang years, Zhang Zhengchuan learned the art of treating injuries from a wandering martial monk, with an emphasis on external treatment; at the end of the Daoguang reign his son Zhang Rukui opened the Baochuntang injury clinic in Huangyan; and by the third-generation inheritor Zhang Yutang, a complete set of principles, methods, prescriptions, and medicinals for combined internal and external treatment had been summarized. To this day the lineage has been transmitted for seven generations, and the institutions of practice include the Taizhou Zhang's Bone Injury Hospital and clinical departments in Huangyan and around Taizhou.
Other submitting regions for the same item: TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy · TCM Bone-setting Therapy.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The inheritors of the Zhang's bone-setting therapy are past seventy or approaching sixty, and it is urgent to train successors so as to escape the predicament of having no one to carry on the lineage. Zhang Yanyou (recorded in the official file of the affiliated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1950, a native of Taizhou, Zhejiang. Chief physician of traditional Chinese medicine. In the 1980s he was transferred to the Third People's Hospital of Huangyan County (now Huangyan District, Taizhou), where he established a department of bone injury. In 1997 he founded Taizhou Shuguang Hospital on his own. In long years of bone-injury practice, he formed a distinctive system of trauma treatment in terms of principles, methods, prescriptions, and medicinals, summarized the "ten methods of bone setting", and his bone-setting manipulations are light, precise, and quick. He was the first in Taizhou to apply the combination of Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of orthopedic and bone-injury diseases. He is a representative inheritor of the Zhang's bone-setting therapy (TCM Bone-setting Therapy), a project in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.
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)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。