Miao Medicine
01 · Historical Records
In a 2006 survey of 113 Miao medicine practitioners organized by the Health Bureau of Leishan County, Guizhou Province, 47 were skilled at treating traumatic fractures of the bones of the upper and lower limbs, ribs, skull, and clavicle; 15 were skilled at treating venomous snakebites; and 6 could treat both kinds of injury. A Miao medicine practitioner in Shuizhai Village, Fangxiang Township, had practiced medicine for 24 years. Skilled in using ancestral secret prescriptions to treat fractures and venomous snakebites, he achieved a cure rate of 90.4% for fractures and 84.9% for venomous snakebites.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture is the main settlement area of the Miao people, with a Miao population of more than 1.7 million, accounting for one quarter of the total Miao population of China. The Miao have long been known for the saying that 'every herb is a medicine and everyone can practice medicine.' Among the Miao people circulate the sayings 'a thousand years of Miao medicine, ten thousand years of Miao materia medica' and 'three thousand Miao medicinals, eight hundred single prescriptions.' Their approaches to the causes, diagnosis, and medication of diseases, to the naming, processing, and preparation of drugs, and to health preservation all have distinctive ethnic characteristics, and they have formed a theoretical system of two guiding principles, five channels, thirty-six major syndromes, seventy-two diseases, one hundred and eight minor syndromes, and forty-nine acute episodes. Miao medicine practitioners are familiar with more than two hundred diseases, spanning internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedics, and other specialties. Among these, external treatments are especially distinctive. Well-known therapies include steaming and fumigation, egg rolling, water dissolving, plowshare stepping, tendon picking, blistering, fire needling, lamp-fire burning, and guasha scraping, all highly effective in treating bone-setting and trauma, wounds from knives, arrows, and guns, and bites from snakes and insects. Miao medicine practitioners are past masters at setting fractured bones and treating snakebites. Miao medicine practitioners in Jiayong Village, Yongle Town, are skilled in using ancestral secret prescriptions to treat fractures of the bones of the upper and lower limbs and the ribs, achieving a cure rate of 89.3%.
Steaming, hot-egg rolling and water rubs
Steaming works through medicinal vapour, hot eggs are rolled over the sore part, and watery preparations are dabbed on, none of which breaks the skin.
Stepping, tendon-picking and blistering
Stepping with a blade, picking the superficial tendons and drawing blisters are the mildly injurious procedures of She external treatment.
Fire needles and lamp-bursting
Hot needles prickle the lesion and bursting lamps scorch chosen points, both relying on heat and local stimulation.
Two outlines, five canons and the syndrome system
She medicine organises disease into two outlines, five canons, thirty-six syndromes, seventy-two ailments and forty-nine reversals.
A local division of labour in bone-setting and snakebite
Among 113 surveyed She doctors in Leishan, 47 set bones, 15 treat snakebite and six do both, a clear local specialisation.
Wang Zengshi and his teaching
Wang Zengshi has practised family secrets for over thirty years without reserve, extending his work beyond trauma to tumours and hepatitis.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Leishan County is the principal center of transmission for the Miao bone-setting and snakebite treatment methods. Shuizhai Village in Fangxiang Township and Jiayong Village in Yongle Town have each produced a Miao medicine practitioner known for bone-setting and treating venomous snakebites, and their cure rates have remained stable over many years of practice. In the 2006 survey of 113 Miao medicine practitioners organized by the Leishan County Health Bureau, 47 were adept at treating fractures of the bones of the upper and lower limbs, ribs, skull, and clavicle; 15 at treating venomous snakebites; and 6 at both, showing that this specialization has already reached a considerable scale within the county. Practitioners in this area generally also master external treatments such as steaming and fumigation, fire needling, and lamp-fire burning; beyond bone injuries and snakebites, they also handle wounds from knives, arrows, and guns, as well as rheumatic pain. Wang Zengshi has practiced medicine for more than thirty years, combining the ancestral secret prescriptions of Miao medicine and materia medica with the medical rules of Miao practice. His diagnostic experience has steadily accumulated, and in addition to fractures, falls and injuries, rheumatism, bone hyperplasia, and snakebites, it has extended to difficult conditions such as nameless tumors, hepatitis B, and sequelae of stroke.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Medicine · Miao Medicine · Miao Medicine · Miao Medicine.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The transmission of the Miao methods for treating bone injuries and snakebites relies mainly on two channels: inheritance within families and instruction by masters. Because the Miao have no script of their own, Miao medicine practitioners are mostly illiterate or semi-literate, which makes transmission more difficult. The genealogical records of transmission are incomplete, and the Miao bone-setting and snakebite treatment methods are in an endangered state; greater support, rescue efforts, and research should be undertaken. Wang Zengshi (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, of Miao ethnicity, born in November 1957, a native of Leishan County, Guizhou Province. In more than thirty years of medical practice, he has drawn on the ancestral secret prescriptions of Miao medicine and materia medica, followed the medical rules of Miao practice, and continuously summed up his experience, so that his diagnostic and therapeutic skills have steadily improved. He has devoted himself to the diagnosis and treatment of difficult and miscellaneous ailments, and has considerable research and clinical experience with fractures, falls and injuries, rheumatism, bone hyperplasia, snakebites, nameless tumors, hepatitis B, and post-stroke sequelae. He actively transmits the ancestral medical art of the Miao people and has never been secretive about it; his medical skill and ethics are widely praised. He is a representative inheritor of Miao Medicine (bone-setting and snakebite treatment), a project of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Long Yunian 04-1950
- Tian Xingxiu 05-2963
- Wang Zengshi 05-2964
- Long Xinchen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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