Hui Medicine
01 · Historical Records
Hui medicine is the crystallisation of the mutual blending of ancient Arabic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and the medical systems of the various peoples of the Western Regions. The Huihui Yaofang (Prescriptions of the Hui), a representative work of Hui medicine from the Yuan and Ming eras, originally comprised 36 volumes, of which only 4 survive; it has bequeathed to Hui orthopedics the underlying knowledge of medicinals and manual techniques. The secret in-house preparations used by the Zhang family's bone-setting therapy — such as the "Huihui jiegu" (bone-joining) and "jinchuang" (incised-wound) formulas — together with the manual techniques of pulling, reduction, and coaptation, can all be traced to this kind of Hui medical writing and to the traditional medical skills of the Hui communities.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Hui medicine is an important component of China's traditional medicine. Hui medicine has a long history. It is the product of the mutual blending of ancient Arabic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and the medical systems of the various peoples of the Western Regions, while retaining the Hui people's medical experience, aromatic drugs, and cultural characteristics. The Huihui Yaofang is a representative work of Hui medicine from the Yuan and Ming eras. The original text comprised 36 volumes, of which only 4 survive. A comparatively good critical edition of the surviving volumes of the Huihui Yaofang has also been published. These works have laid the foundation for the inheritance and development of Hui medicine. Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy is a method of treating fractures, joint dislocations, and other bone and joint injuries by means of traditional bone-setting manipulation — pulling, reduction, and coaptation — together with secret in-house preparations handed down in the family, such as the "Huihui jiegu" (bone-joining) and "jinchuang" (incised-wound) formulas, and external fixation with materials prepared by the practitioners themselves (including small splints). It involves no surgery, no plaster casts, and no metal pins or traction. Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy will have a positive and far-reaching influence on establishing and improving China's Hui medical system, on serving the general public — especially the broad rural population — with traditional folk medical skills, and on raising the level of public health.
Pulling, reducing and repositioning
Reduction follows three moves: traction to unlock, reposition of the displaced bone, then bringing the ends back together.
Family-made bone and wound remedies
Alongside the manual work go family formulas for setting bones and treating wounds, adjusted to each case.
Self-made splints for external fixation
Splints of self-made material hold the reduction: no operation, no plaster cast, no metal traction.
The surviving text of the Hui medical formulary
Of thirty-six volumes of the Hui medical formulary only four survive, printed in a critical edition that underpins current practice.
Zhang Baoyu, third-generation inheritor
Born in 1946 in Wuzhong, Ningxia, Zhang Baoyu is the third-generation inheritor and a recipient of the national transmission award.
Chen Weichuan and the ten Chen methods
Chen Weichuan of the same city refined the ten Chen techniques and published several books, training close to a hundred students.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy is transmitted from Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region; Zhang Baoyu is the third-generation inheritor, and the Zhang's Orthopedic Hospital in Litong District, Wuzhong City, is the designated protecting unit. The Chen family's Ten Hui Medical Techniques, based in the same city, were promoted throughout Ningxia and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Inner Mongolia region after the family moved from Kaifeng to Bazhazi Village in Jinji County. Of these two Hui medical lineages, one excels at bone-setting and the other at treating internal diseases by external means; together they form the two branches of local Hui medicine.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Hui Medicine · Hui Medicine.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Works published in recent years — including Zhongguo Huizu Yiyao (Chinese Hui Medicine), Huizu Yiyao Jianshi (A Brief History of Hui Medicine), Huizu Yiyao Aoyi (The Profound Meaning of Hui Medicine), and Huiyao Bencao (Materia Medica of the Hui) — have provided comprehensive and in-depth introductions to Hui medicine. Hui medicine has distinctive theories and experience in health preservation, Hui medical technique, the use of aromatic drugs, and dietary therapy, and many health-preservation customs, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, and food-therapy practices have been continuously transmitted and applied by the Hui people. Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy is the clinical experience and medical insight that several generations of the Zhang family have continually explored, studied, and systematised in their clinical practice in orthopedics and traumatology in minority areas. Its therapeutic effects are remarkable, its characteristics are evident, and it has a distinctly national, folk, and regional character. Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy has been passed on among the people only through family transmission; much of its therapeutic experience and many of its formulas have not been systematically excavated or organised, let alone summarised and codified in writing. Because it has long been sustained through individual investment and family transmission, it has been difficult for Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy to reach its proper scale, and it urgently needs protection. Zhang Baoyu (from the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, Hui ethnicity, born in September 1946, from Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of Hui Medicine (Zhang's Hui Bone-Setting Therapy), a project in the fourth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. Third-generation inheritor of Zhang's Hui bone-setting therapy; laureate of the second Xinchuan Prize for Inheritors of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, awarded by the Chinese National Academy of Arts (China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center). For his outstanding performance in work relating to minority medicine, he has been named an Advanced Individual in National Minority Medicine Work by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, and an Advanced Individual in National Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Work by the Ministry of Culture. Chen Weichuan (from the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Chief physician. For more than fifty years he has repeatedly visited fellow renowned physicians, drawing widely on others' strengths to enrich and perfect the Chen family's Ten Hui Medical Techniques, and has applied the medical skills handed down in his family in clinical practice. He has edited and published numerous works, including Huiyao Huicui (A Collection of Hui Medicines), Wuzhong Hui Yiyao Shi (A History of Hui Medicine in Wuzhong), Chen Weichuan Yijian Yanfang Ji (Collected Proven Formulas of Chen Weichuan), Chen Weichuan Hui Yi Fawei (Chen Weichuan's Exploration of Hui Medicine), Chen Weichuan Yishi Lu (A Record of Chen Weichuan's Medical Practice), and Chen Weichuan Zhong Hui Yi Linzheng Shilu Fang (Verified Prescriptions from Chen Weichuan's Clinical Practice of Chinese and Hui Medicine). For several decades he has trained medical and pharmaceutical talent through teaching and clinical practice, instructing nearly one hundred students. Male, Hui ethnicity, born in May 1939, died in August 2019, from Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of Hui Medicine (the Chen Family's Ten Hui Medical Techniques), a project in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. He was appointed an instructor in the second batch of the national programme for inheriting the academic experience of veteran traditional Chinese medicine experts by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and was conferred the titles of Famous TCM Physician and Excellent Instructor by the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Baoyu 04-1951
- Yang Huaxiang 04-1952
- Chen Weichuan 05-2965
- Chen Kun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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