The Boundary Between Life and Death

Through in-depth collation and study of bamboo and silk manuscripts-especially those related to medicine-this book reveals the level of medical practice in early China. It is particularly distinctive in its focus on disease prognosis and time-space medicine, offering a valuable supplement to the historical sources on medicine in ancient China.¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿Since the early 20th century, the excavation of a large number of bamboo and silk medical manuscripts and medically-related bamboo-silk texts has significantly compensated for the scarcity of transmitted medical literature from the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods. This book provides a comprehensive and systematic collation of content related to disease prognosis found in excavated bamboo and silk texts, while also conducting comparative studies with transmitted literature and Dunhuang manuscripts.Disease prognosis in these texts includes predicting the onset, spread, and outcome of diseases, as well as divining the sources of pathogenic afflictions and the sites of disease manifestation. Based on the methods and principles underlying these predictions, the book explores the subject from eight perspectives: clinical signs and symptoms, color inspection and pulse diagnosis, therapeutic experience, seasonal climate, cyclical¿¿ (ganzhi) correspondences, cosmic modeling, turtle-shell and milfoil divination, and the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of time.The disease prognosis found in bamboo and silk texts exhibits significant complexity and diversity. On the one hand, it reflects clinical experience accumulated over long-term medical practice. On the other hand, it retains certain primitive worldviews. Moreover, it is grounded in concepts such as yin-yang and five phases, the correspondence between heaven and humanity, and numeral-symbol inference, constructing systematic methodological frameworks for disease prognosis and outcome analysis. The coexistence of such ä¿ predictive system reflects the multidimensional exploration of early Chinese medicine-between empirical accumulation and theoretical construction-during the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods.This book serves as a reference for researchers, teachers, and students in fields such as Chinese medicine, history, and archaeology, and is also suitable for general readers interested in these areas.20¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿