Chinese Mental Illness Classification And Symptoms Of The Ancient Medical Literature Study

Mental disease is a kind of old illness, which seriously affects human health. In the development of TCM in the past thousands of years, our ancestor cumulated a great deal of clinical experience and frame of reference in treatment of them. The purpose of this work is to study the ancient literatures, which record mental diseases, to systematize the taxology and symptomatology of TC psychiatry to fulfill the gag which exists for many years.Mental disease is due to the disorder of the function of the cerebrum caused by the improper factors of nature, biology, psychology and society, which induce difficulty or affection of the psychic activities such as cognition, feeling, volition and behavior. Things like these that are related to in the ancient literatures are the material of this study.In recent years literatures of TC psychiatry were studied according to three aspects and papers were published. They are:1．Some historical period.2．Some mental disease.3．Certain practitioner and medical book.The study of this work shows four particulars about the classification of mental diseases and the description of their symptoms in ancient medical literature of different historical stages:1．The dynasties from Qin to Han are the preliminary stage of mental diseases in China. Practitioners treated them with proper methods and attitude. An elementary classification of psychic affections was formed and their different symptoms were stated.2．From Wei Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, the medical men not only succeeded the achievements of the predecessors but also increased the sorts of mental disease, such as traumatic psychic and suicide by hang. Because of time characteristic, attention was also paid to the disorders caused by intoxication of alcohol and some drugs. Attention was also paid to them.3．TC psychiatry advanced greatly in the dynasties of Song and Yuan. It tended to separate from the family of the diseases belonged to internal medicine. At the same time it is not a simple as many physicians proposed different viewpoints upon the pathogenesis and differentiation diagnosis especially in convulsions and other neurotic illnesses. 4．In the dynasties of Ming and Qing the pattern of TC psychiatry was basically built up. The classification of the diseases was further improved and the descriptions of their symptoms are quite similar to present time.By this study of old literatures medical literatures it can be concluded on the taxology and symptomatology as followings:1．The formation and development of psychiatry of traditional Chinese medicine are based on the background of Chinese culture and society.2．The thought, that considers brain to handle mind, is never neglected since the beginning of the development of TC Psychiatry.3．The Symptomatology and taxology are established and improved step by step and they are mostly identical but minor differences with modern psychiatry though they are older for several hundreds of years than the latter.Finally, the author expects this paper could be helpful to promote present application and study of ancient literatures of TC psychiatry because it is believed that TC psychiatry is able to make new important contributions for human health.