Investigating the concepts of qi and mai and their functions in the oldest extant, recently excavated, second century BCE practice-oriented guides to pulse taking, moxibustion, and needling practices, this thesis aims to show the prominent influence of water imagery and suggests a way to conceptualize its significance. These texts can be seen as transitional in the development of acupuncture, whose later practice would involve use of metal needles and be almost exclusively associated with the cosmological concepts of yin yang and wu xing and circular movements of qi that reached popularity in the Qin and Han dynasties and attested in the oldest and most famous Chinese medical compilation, also of the Han, the Huangdi neijing . In contrast, the paradigm of water, with its unidirectional free flows, is what informs these early medical manuscripts' understanding of qi and mai and their physiological movements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.30157 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Daly, Nigel Peter. |
| Contributors | Yates, Robin D. S. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of East Asian Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001764159, proquestno: MQ64139, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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