Acupuncture

The discovery of the text written on silk sheds light on the significant advances in medicine that led to the development of acupuncture in ancient China.

丝绸上文字的发现揭示了医学的重大进步，这在当时对中国古代针灸的发展产生了重要影响。

Archaeologists have uncovered many unexpected objects from excavating ancient tombs around the world. In 2017, researchers examining the site of a 2,200-year-old Chinese tomb not only found human remains, but they also found what may be the oldest known study chart of the human body.

考古学家在世界各地挖掘古代墓葬时收获了许多意想不到的发现。2017 年，研究人员对一座有 2200 年历史的中国古墓进行检查，不仅找到了人类遗骸，还发现了可能是已知最古老的人体研究图。

According to Live Science, a Chinese text written on silk was discovered inside the tombs at the site of Mawangdui in south-central China.

据 Live Science 报道，考古人员在中国中南部地区的马王堆遗址墓葬中发现了一张帛书。

The tombs belonged to Marquis Dai and his family. The corpse of the Marquis'wife, Xin Zhui also known as Lady Dai, is famed as one of the world's most well-preserved mummies.

这些墓葬属于轪侯一家。轪侯夫人辛追（又名轪夫人）的尸身是世界上保存最完好的湿尸之一。

Known as the Mawangdui medical manuscripts, the Chinese text found inside the tombs was the focus of a new study published in The Anatomical Record in early September 2020. The ancient text contains the anatomical descriptions of the human body, the earliest known to researchers. But making out the contents of the ancient silk script was no easy task.

在墓葬中发现的中文帛书被称为“马王堆医学手稿”，是2020 年 9 月初发表在《解剖学记录》上的一项新研究的焦点。这份古老的帛书包含对人体的解剖学描述，是迄今为止最早的记载。但是要弄清这些帛书的内容并不是一件容易的事情。

"The skills necessary to interpret them are diverse, requiring the researcher firstly to read the original Chinese, and secondly to perform the anatomical investigations that allow a re-viewing of the structures that the texts refer to," the study reads.

“要想解读这些帛书，有复杂繁多的技能要求，首先要求研究人员阅读古文原文，其次进行解剖学研究，以便重新审视帛书内容所指的研究结构，”该报告写道。

The authors of the ancient Chinese text used the term "meridian" in their writings. It is a term most associated with acupuncture, a traditional medical treatment in Chinese culture that focuses on the regulation of blood flow inside the body.

这份中国古代帛书的作者使用了“经络”一词。这个术语与针灸联系最紧密。针灸是出自中国的一种传统医疗手段，旨在调节人体内的血液流动。

Researchers in the study interpret "meridian" as a large blood vessel that stretches through different parts of the body. For example, one line of the ancient text was translated as describing a meridian located "in the center of the palm, goes along the forearm between the two bones following straight along the tendons, travels below the sinew into the bicep, to the armpit, and connects with the heart," following the path of the ulnar artery. Another part of the text describes a "meridian" in the foot that "starts at the big toe and runs along the medial surface of the leg and thigh. Connects at the ankle, knee, and thigh. It travels along the adductors of the thigh, and covers the abdomen." This matches the location of the saphenous vein.

研究人员将“经络”一词解释为贯穿人身体不同部位的大血管。例如，帛书的其中一行古文被翻译成描述一条位于“手掌中心，沿着前臂的两根骨头之间直至肌腱，顺着肌腱而下到达二头肌、腋窝并与心脏相连”的经络，与尺骨动脉一致。帛书的另一部分描述了脚部的“经络”，它从“大脚趾开始，沿着小腿、大腿的内侧面延伸，并连接脚踝、膝盖和大腿。它沿着大腿内收肌向上，并覆盖腹部”。这和下肢隐静脉的位置相吻合。

The findings are remarkable for two reasons. First, given the age of the tombs which date back to the Han Dynasty between 206 BC to 220 AD, the texts are no doubt the oldest known medical charts describing the human anatomy in the world. As the paper notes, the Chinese text "represent the earliest surviving anatomical atlas, designed to provide a concise description of the human body for students and practitioners of medicine in ancient China."

这些发现之所以引人注目，有两个原因。首先，鉴于墓葬的年代可以追溯到公元前 206 年至公元 220 年的汉朝，这些文献无疑是世界上已知最古老的描述人体解剖的医学文本。该研究指出，这份中文帛书“代表了现存最早的解剖学图集，旨在为中国古代的学生和医学从业者提供关于人体的简明描述。”

Previously, the oldest written medical chart of the human anatomy was believed to originate from Greece. Historians believed that ancient Greek physicians like Herophilus and Erasistratus — both who lived sometime before the Han Dynasty period — had likely authored such ancient medical texts. But most of their texts have been lost and are only known from what other ancient writers wrote about them. Secondly, the medical text also debunks the long-standing myth that there was no scientific foundation for the "anatomy of acupuncture." The medical text reflects obvious connections to the ancient practice and offers evidence that physicians who wrote about acupuncture were working off of actual observations of the human body.

此前，人体解剖医学图表的最早记录被认为出自希腊。历史学家认为，像希罗菲卢斯和埃拉西斯特拉图斯这样的古希腊医生——他们生活的年代都早于汉朝——很可能创作了这样的古代医学文本。但他们的大部分作品已经丢失，只能从其他古代作家的描述中知晓一二。其次，这份中国帛书也打破了长期以来“针灸解剖学”没有科学基础的传言，它反映了与中国古代实践的明显联系，并证明医生写下的关于针灸的记载源自对人体的实际观察。

It's unclear whose body the ancient texts were based on but researchers suspect the anatomical studies may have likely come from dissecting the bodies of criminals. Human remains were considered sacred in ancient China but the honor of preserving one's body was possibly not given to those who came from the lower-rungs of society. The study emphasized that the information recovered from the discovery also shows the "Eurocentric perspective in medicine." Past studies have commonly neglected researching ancient practices of non-western cultures despite their long history of medical practices.

这些古代文献是基于谁的身体做了研究尚不清楚，但研究人员认为用的可能是罪犯的身体。在古代中国，人类尸体被认为是神圣的，但是社会底层人民的尸身却无法保证享有同等的优待。该研究强调，这一发现也显示了“医学的欧洲中心论”。过去的研究经常忽略对非西方文化的古老实践的研究，尽管它们有着悠久的医学实践历史。

China, especially, has a long history of medical studies dating back thousands of years ago such as the Anatomical Atlas of Truth by Cun Zhen Tu and Anatomical Illustrations by Ou Xifan Wuy Zang Tu from the Song dynasty of 960 CE. With this new study bringing light to ancient Chinese medicine, perhaps the country's rich history of medical research will finally get its due.

中国的医学研究历史尤其悠久，可以追溯到几千年前，如公元 960 年宋朝杨介的《存真图》和吴简的《欧希范五脏图》。这项新的研究揭示了古代中医的发展，也许中国丰富的医学研究历史最终能够得到应有的重视。