She Medicine
01 · Historical Records
The Liujing meridian bone-unblocking medicine has no written prescription book; its names and formulas have been passed among She medical families by hereditary transmission. The name explains the medicinal force in terms of the meridians, referring to the view that medicine works by penetrating from the body surface deep into the meridians. Bajing She Village in Songshan Town, Luoyuan County, Fujian, is where this craft took shape; in the same county, She villages such as Tali, Huangjiawan, Wangyan, Shuikouyang, Shanlongwan, and Tingyangban also have She doctors practicing. When mountain-dwelling She people collected medicinals and practiced medicine, they took what they needed according to the seasons and the type of disease, selecting whole plants, leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, bark, or roots as appropriate; nearly a thousand proven formulas accumulated and were transmitted village by village in the mountainous areas of eastern Fujian and southern Zhejiang.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The radiation areas include Taishun and Wencheng in Zhejiang and some townships in Fujian. She medicine is a traditional medicine explored and created by the She people in their long-term production and life practices to adapt to their living environment and health requirements. It is an important component of traditional Chinese medicine, with regional, ethnic, and family-transmitted characteristics. Because the She people live in mountainous or semi-mountainous areas, they have unique medical methods and medication habits, and have accumulated many ancestral secret formulas and empirical methods in treating traumatic injuries, snakebites, rheumatism, icteric hepatitis, children's gan accumulation, pneumonia, and osteomyelitis. At present, most folk She doctors are advanced in age, and some famous She doctors have already passed away. The craft of making the Liujing meridian bone-unblocking medicine is one of the important components of traditional She medicine. The She medicine and She materia medica of Bajing She Village in Songshan Town, Luoyuan County, Fujian, are a distinctive craft formed by the She people in the course of their long struggle against disease, summarizing and accumulating experience in disease prevention and treatment. Besides Bajing Village, She medicine and materia medica are also spread among She villages in Luoyuan County such as Tali, Huangjiawan, Wangyan, Shuikouyang, Shanlongwan, and Tingyangban. There are nearly a thousand proven formulas and She medicinal materials; She medicinals are highly effective and inexpensive, simple and convenient, available in all four seasons, and found everywhere. She doctors have many secret formulas, folk remedies, and established formulas for treating common diseases in internal medicine, surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, traumatic injuries, rheumatism, dysentery, epilepsy, toothache, hemorrhoids, and children's gan accumulation. The doctors understand both materia medica and medicine. In treating disease they mostly use herbs: sometimes the whole plant, but more often leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, bark, or roots, including woody, vine, fern, and fungal plants. She doctors making house calls often carry a cloth sack on their backs and collect medicinals while making their rounds, picking whatever is at hand and taking what they need. The effects of the craft in treating traumatic injuries and difficult, complicated diseases in its specialty are outstanding.
Naming the remedy after the channels
The remedy is named for the channels, opening them before relieving injury, in line with She treatment of trauma and bone pain.
The travelling herb bag
She doctors carry a cloth bag and gather herbs on the way, taking whole plants or single organs of woody, climbing, fern and fungus species.
Bajing and its neighbouring She villages
Bajing village concentrates the accumulated experience, with related practice also found in six other She villages of Luoyuan county.
Close to a thousand recipes across the disciplines
Nearly a thousand recipes cover internal, surgical, eye and bone conditions, with unusual strength in trauma and difficult cases.
Herbs available in every season
She herbs are simple, cheap and gathered year-round, so the prescriptions survive in villages without drug shops.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
She medicine is mainly distributed in the She townships of seven counties (cities, districts) in Lishui, Zhejiang, including the Jingning She Autonomous County and Liandu.
Other submitting regions for the same item: She Medicine.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Because the She people have a language but no script, She medicine is mostly transmitted orally and understood through insight, learned and verified in practice, with medicine and pharmacy as one, emphasizing practice. Its characteristics of self-diagnosis, self-collection, self-preparation, self-compounding, and self-use determine the difficulty of its transmission. Therefore, rescuing and organizing She medicine and developing She medicine have become urgent tasks. Like other ethnic medicines, the transmission of She traditional medical culture currently lacks successors, and it urgently needs protection.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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