《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 And Magic Culture

《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 is one of the silk books which were excavated from The Third Grave Of King Ma in ChangSha in 1973. It is the oldest prescriptions ever found in China. The time that the book formed was earlier than that of the 《Medicine Book Of HuangDi》 , so the silk book is very valuable. There are 283 prescriptions in this book, and these prescriptions cure diseases mainly by using medicines, medical stones, moxibustions, kneading, medical smoking, and surgery. But there are still some magical treatments in the book, such as drawing "symbols", "magic steps of Yu", "cursing", etc. According to statistics, there are 39 magic prescriptions in the total 283 ones, and this number shouldn't be neglected.Historians should pay great attention to the abundant magic data in the《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 . Research its magic culture has great significance to further research the religion, folk-custom, psychology of Pre-Qin dynasty. But because of different subjects restrictions, historians were hesitant to set foot in the field of medicine, as a result, they hadn't digged out enough of the abundant culture, religion, folk-custom of this book. The author of this paper try to overcome obstacles of different subjects, and set a special topic on the 《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 And Magic Culture. The paper shows wonderful magic contents of the《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 , and puts them into the view of cultural anthropology. Further, the paper analyzes the phenomena of magic and medicine combination by putting them into the background of magic ages of Pre-Qin dynasty. Finally, the paper comes to the conclusion of the status of the 《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 in the history of Chinese medicine: it is an important book in the developing process of Chinese Medicine: from magical treatment to the combination of magical and medical treatment and then to the relatively independence of Chinese Medicine. The research work of this paper has certain benefits for historians to understand the magic culture of the 《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 and do further research on the religion and folk-custom of Pre-Qin dynasty. So, the research work of this paper is full of significance.Firstly, the paper introduces basic information and research status of the《Prescriptions Of Fifty-two Diseases》 . Secondly, According to magical theories, the...