First Real Clinical

The first real clinical text on traditional Chinese medicine - the Shang Han Lun, or 'Treatise on Febrile Diseases', was written by Zhang Zhong Jing in about AD 210.

It provides a systematic presentation, diagnosis and treatment of various acute fevers, including typhoid, cholera and dysentery, and discusses a theory about the progression of fevers that is still used today.

Huang Fu Mi's classic of acupuncture and moxibustion, which includes the accurate location of 349 points, appeared around the same time.

This was used in 1979 (1,700 years later) in the preparation of the important modern work Essentials of Acupuncture, compiled by the major acupuncture colleges of China.

This kind of use of previous material is typical in acupuncture - the emphasis is always on building upon the firm foundations of the past.

The Mai Jing 'Pulse Classic', giving a systematic and detailed description of diagnosis by the pulse - another of the keystones of Chinese medicine - was also written in the third century AD.