Diarrhea Syndromes Ancient And Modern Literature Research And Academic Origins

Xiexie(diarrhea) is characterized by increased defecation times, loose stool,or even watery stool. It usually occurs in summer and autumn. It may be seen in acute enteritis, chronic enteritis, dyspepsia, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. In the modern society, people are under a lot of pressures and stresses because their working rhythm is getting faster and faster. This is one reason why diarrhea is so common. So the study of diarrhea is very important for improving the health and quality of life of people.Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has obtained ample knowledge about diarrhea more than two thousand years. Through history, TCM physicians had stored up plentiful knowledge and clinical experiences on this disease. They invented many effective therapeutics and formulas. They left us very precise and plentiful literatures about diarrhea. Based on bibliographical study, I collected materials of diarrhea from TCM literatures published over past two thousand years. I explained systematically the academic characteristics about diarrhea in different dynasties, from Early-Qin dynasty to the time of Republic. Besides, from the TCM historical angle, I explored intrinsic relationship between diarrhea academic progress and the development of TCM theory, in order to reveal the origin and development of diarrhea. In this article, I also analyzed the famed modern TCM masters'academic theories and clinical experiences on diarrhea, in order to enlighten the research and clinical practice of diarrhea.This article includes three parts. In the first part, I would give a brief introduction on diarrhea, including the definition, the development of the denomination and the differentiation among the different denomination of diarrhea.In the second part, I discussed the diarrhea literatures in the order of history. I recapitulated the diarrhea-related literatures respectively from Early-Qin, Three-kingdoms, Two-jin (Western and Eastern Jin), Southern and Northern dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five-Generations, Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republics. From these literatures, I emphasized on the issues such as diarrhea's synonyms, causes, pathogenesis, treatments based on pathogenesis, other therapies and preventions in the different historical phase and gave a summarization on their relative characteristic. In the third part, I would make a reference to the modern research on diarrhea. A summary was drawn on the status of diarrhea study since 1949. An introduction would be also made on the famous modern TCM masters'of their academic theories and clinical experiences on diarrhea. At last, I make some introduction about the development of Chinese medicine, acupuncture and other traditional treatments on diarrhea .