The Three celestial Emperors: Fu Hsi, Shen Nung and huang Ti

Emperor Fu Hsi

• Emperor Fu Hsi is said to have been the founder of the first Chinese Dynasty reigning around 200 B.C.E
• He is a chinese culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping.
• He is also credited with creating the Eight Trigrams, which form the basis for the philosophy of the Book of Changes (I Ching) or Canon of changes and are regarded as the origin of calligraphy and the yin and yang concept
• He lived for 197 years altogether and died at a place called Chen (modern Huaiyang, Henan), where his mausoleum can still be found.

Emperor Huang Ti (2697 B.C.E. to 2598 B.C.E)

• Is said to have reigned for 100 years
• Gave his people the wheel, the magnet. an astronomical observatory, the calender, the art of pulse measurement, the Huang-ti Nei Ching (The Inner Canon Of the Yellow emperor)
• The Huang-ti Nei Ching is a text said to have inspired and guided medical thought for over 2500 years.
• The text of the Huang-ti Nei Ching present today is believed by most to have originated from the beginning of the Táng Dynasty (618-907)
• He is also credited with defeating “barbarians” in a great battle somewhere in what is now Shanxi the victory winning him the leadership of tribes throughout the Huang He (Yellow River) plain.

Classical Chinese Texts

• Most influential classical Chinese medical texts were buried with their owners around the second century B.C,E and recovered in the 1970s in Mawangdui, Hunan providing new insights into Chinese early Medicine.
• These are used by now philosophers to navigate the way the physicians from the 4th to the 1st century B.C.E were able to separate themselves from shamans and other popular healers.
• These physicians were apparently looking into physiology, pathology and therapy that differed from the ones found in the inner canon.
• Theses texts included research in medicinal drugs, exorcism, magical and religious techniques and surgical operations.
• The major technique, acupuncture, in the Inner Canon was not discussed in the Mawangdui Texts.
• The Nei Ching that exists in this day is a collection of sometimes contradictory ideas and interpretations forced into an integrated conceptual system

Yin and Yang

• The Inner circle is a dialogue between Huang Ti and his minister of health, Ch'i Po.
• They explore medical philosophy based on the yin and yang, the five phases and the correlation between them and every entity impinging on human life, from family to climate.
• The terms yin and yang are representatives of all opposite pairs that represent the dualism of the cosmos.
• Yin is characterised as female, dark,cold, soft , earth, void while yang characterises male,light, warm,firm, heaven, full e.t.c
• Yin and yang should however be conceptualised as rational concepts.
• although the origional meanings behind yin and yang are obscure, Light and Shade remain as fundamental concepts.
• When applied to the human body, the outside is Yang and the inside Yin.
• Huang Ti taught that Yin and Yang are the basis of everything in creation, the cause of all transformation and the origin behind life and death

The Five Phases

• Yin and Yang generate the five phases: Wood, fire, earth, metal and water.
• These are finer ramified names for yin and yang and the five phases represent aspects in the cycle of changes.
• These are linked by relationships of generations and destruction.
• The cycle of destruction: Water puts out fire, Fire melts Metal, a Metal axe cuts wood, a Wooden plow turns up the earth, an Earthen dam stops the flow of water.
• The cycle of generations: Water produces the wood of trees, Wood produces fire, Fire creates ash, or earth, Earth is the source of metals, when Metals are heated they flow like water.
• Chinese philosophers and scientists created a system to rationalise the relationship of the five elements to almost everything else hence the sequences of creation and destruction provided a foundation for classical concepts of human physiology