The experience of wind in early and medieval Chinese medicine

Abstract

Two terms for wind prevail in Chinese medical texts and practice:qiandfeng. Shigehisa Kuriyama noted thatqiusually referred to regular andfengto unruly winds. This is not contested in this paper, but it considers these connotations of wind a characteristic ofqiandfengin 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 theRecords of the Historian(Shi ji,c.86 BCE) and related texts, it suggests that in the third and second century BCEqigenerally designated internal andfengexternal winds. Both alluded to the spirit world:qi‐breaths tended to be associated withshen‐spirits,feng‐winds withgui‐ghosts, although there were overlaps. Breathing techniques, with their emphasis on regularity, were developed for stabilizing the mind and appeasing the emotions, whilefeng‐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.