The general development of Chinese ophthalmology from its beginnings to the 18th century

Abstract

Chinese medicine has a long history and there are a great number of historical records about the ancient Chinese people struggling against diseases. Some of the records are found in our oldest writings discovered in modern times. For instance, not a few diseases were mentioned in the prayers and divining words of the royal family which were engraved on the shells and bones dug out of the ruins of the Yin Dynasty — the remnants of the Wu-Ding Period (1324–1266 BC) in Anyang, Henan Province. The record of eye diseases is the earliest record of ophthalmology in our country. In the ‘Hill and Sea Classic’, an old book written in the period of the Qin Dynasty, more than 100 drugs are mentioned, and among them seven are related to eye diseases. Besides the ‘Hill and Sea Classic’ the ‘Book of History’, ‘Book of Odes’ and ‘Poetry of Chu’ are books recording the drugs used by our ancestors. According to the book ‘Huai Nan Zi’, fraxinus bungeana was beneficial to eye diseases and this kind of plant is still commonly used in Chinese medicine. Owing to the increase of the kinds of drugs and knowledge in pharmacology, a special study concerning herbs came into being. The first book on herbs in China is the ‘Shen Nong Materia Medica’. It was probably completed in the Han Dynasty and is evidently a summary of the pharmacology before that time. In this book, 365 drugs including plant, animal and mineral ones were studied, those related to the eye being more than 70 — more than 40 related to promoting visual acuity and more than 30 to treating eye diseases.