Hiccup Syndrome, Ancient And Modern Literature Research And Academic Origins

Hiccup is the disease which makes the air current in stomach rise adversely, makes the patient keep hiccup,the sound is short and frequent and the patient cannot control it.The sound of hiccup may appear occasionally or frequently, the interval is uncertain,sometimes one may hiccup in a few minutes or half an hour,sometimes one may keep on hiccup for seven or eight times before it stops. The hiccup may occur separately,but may also link with other diseases.The attack of hiccup may happen continuously or at interval.The syndrome can be in the nature of asthenia and sthenia.It is often resulted from cold pathogen,stomach heat, qi depression and food stagnation:or because of the deficient cold of the middle-jiao,loss of kidney qi,or weakness after ill,which leads to the adverse flow of the air in stomach,and it cannot rise and descend as it should.The pathogenesis is the loss of harmony and downbearing of stomach,so the air in stomach moves adversely and causes the flutter of diaphragm.The typical clinical manifestations of hiccup are mentioned in Chinese ancient literatures.And there are a great many related records in ancient books of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).With abundant medical experience,rich theories of TCM on hiccup were accumulated,including etiology,pathogenesis, syndrome differentiation,treatment,preventive measures,nursing,healing,and so on.So it is worth to dig and collate the literatures and to inherit and develop the theories.This study is basically a study of philology.Based on the data of hiccup in past dynasties collected,further analysis on these materials is made.The academic characters in each stage from pre-qin to the Republic of China Period are expatiated to reveal the origin and development of the learning on hiccup. Clinical experience in diagnosing and treating hiccup by modern physicians of TCM is also summarized to reflect their academic thinking.It provides some references for clinic and will be help to exploit the study and treatment of hiccup.This paper is composed of four parts:study on the headstream of the disease name,the points of view of ancient physicians,the clinical experience of modern physicians,and discussion on related questions.In the first part,the origin and evolvement of the disease name was combed, which clarifies the venation of name evolving from a name for symptom to a name for disease and distinguishes hiccup from related and similar diseases.In the second and third parts,with a dynastic history of medicine development unfolded,the characters of medicine and the theories about hiccup in each stage were summarized,whose emphasis is the study on hiccup,involving disease name, cause and pathogenesis,diagnosis,treatment,characteristic medicine, preventing,nursing,and so on.And the experience and measures of syndrome differentiation and treatment from modern physicians were systemically summarized.In the fourth part,hiccup related questions were discussed,especially in some thoughts of syndrome differentiation and some prescriptions rarely used by the doctors of today,so as to exploit the thoughts of treatment based on syndrome differentiation.