%0 Book Section
%9 OS CH : Chapitres d'ouvrages scientifiques
%A Buchillet, Dominique
%T Climate, environment and epidemic febrile diseases : a view from Chinese medicine
%B Socio-ecological dimensions of infectious diseases in Southeast Asia
%C Singapour
%D 2015
%E Morand, S.
%E Dujardin, Jean-Pierre
%E Lefait-Robin, R.
%E Apiwathnasorn, C.
%L fdi:010065582
%G ENG
%I Springer
%@ 978-981-287-526-6 ; 978-981-287-527-3
%K CHINE
%P 9-25
%R 10.1007/978-981-287-527-3_2
%U https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010065582
%> https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/depot/2015-09-25/010065582.pdf
%W Horizon (IRD)
%X Chinese classics of medicine and medical records abound in reference to epidemic febrile diseases. Along with famine due to crop failures, droughts, floods and wars, they exerted a heavy burden on Chinese populations throughout the ages. The early classics of medicine (e.g. Huang Di Nei Jing, Nan Jing, Shang Han Lun, about 200 B.C.-220 A.D.) credited epidemic diseases to the invasion of the body by pathogenic cold and wind, classing them into the category of "cold damage disorders". With the creation of the "School of Warm Diseases" (Qing Dynasty, 1644-1911), a new conception of epidemic diseases emerged: distinction between "warm diseases" and "cold damage disorders", role of a warm "epidemic (or pestilential) qi" or "epidemic toxin" in their occurrence, body invasion through the mouth and nose, high contagiousness, specificity of the epidemic qi according to the species (human or animal) and the nature of the epidemic disease, favouring role of severe climatic and environmental conditions in their emergence, etc. This paper reviews the evolution of medical perceptions on epidemic diseases through Chinese classics of medicine. It stresses the importance of the growing awareness of variations in local and regional environments (with their climatic, epidemiological and medical specificities) in the refashioning of discourses and practices relative to epidemic diseases in Chinese medicine.
%$ 021 ; 050