The experience of wind in early and medieval Chinese medicine

Journal article

Two terms for wind prevail in Chinese medical texts and practice: qi and feng. Shigehisa Kuriyama noted that qi usually referred to regular and feng to unruly winds. This is not contested in this paper, but it considers these connotations of wind a characteristic of qi and feng in late imperial China in particular, and calls for an account that is more sensitive to historical change. Based on a study of twenty-five medical case histories in the 105th chapter of the Records of the Historian (Shi ji, c.86 BCE) and related texts, it suggests that in the third and second century BCE qi generally designated internal and feng external winds. Both alluded to the spirit world: qi-breaths tended to be associated with shen-spirits, feng-winds with gui-ghosts, although there were overlaps. Breathing techniques, with their emphasis on regularity, were developed for stabilizing the mind and appeasing the emotions, while feng-winds, associated with the fecundity-enhancing weather conditions of wind and rain, were a generative principle of procreation. By medieval times, the violent and unruly aspects of wind, and their destructive potential, started to be emphasized. Accordingly, feng-winds became the main aetiology of madness, which in early texts had been rising heat and hot bloodedness.

Authors: Hsu, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.)
• Volume: 13
• Issue: s1
• Pages: S117-S134
• Publication date: 2007-04-01
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2007.00400.x
• EISSN: 1467-9655
• ISSN: 1359-0987
• Language: English
• Keywords: breath; emotions; wind; sex; senses; qi
• Subjects: Chinese studies; Anthropology of the Senses; Medical Anthropology; Anthropology