[On the etiological concept in the literature from unearthed documents of bamboo slips and silk scrolls]

There is a substantial number of medical literature in the unearthed bamboo slips and silk scroll literature, the vast majority of which came into being earlier than medical books handed down from the ancient time, and are the documents of the origin of Chinese medicine dated back to the earliest time known thus far. In these documents, the contents of not a few of them deals with the etiology of disease which, by textual criticism and analysis, can be classified into seven different aspects, namely, six climatic pathogenic factors, emotional factors, injury caused by falling, traumatic damage; frostbite and burns, insect or animal bites, drug poisoning, evil spirit haunting, and constitutional factors, reflecting the contemporary etiological concept truthfully.