Notes II

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The Medical Treatment of Yin-ssu

 

Nicola Di Cosmo's 'A Manchu Fragment On The Medical

Treatment Given By The Italian Jesuit Giovanni

Guiseppe Da Costa,' (Religious And Lay Symbolism In

The Altaic World And Other Papers, Otto Harrasowitz,

Weisbaden, 1984, pp.100-3), presents a rare look into

the medical practice of this Manchu era. An oppor-

tunity also arises to piece together the scanty evi-

dence that exisits concerning Manchu plant medicine.

Di Cosmo states:...'In the course of translation I met

with some difficulties that unfortunately I was not

able to resolve. In particular, mainly because of the

very small amount of information we have on Manchu

medicine, it has been impossible for me to find the

origin and meaning of the two words bashiri g'ang and

los ma ni. These seem to be the only pharmaceutical

words contained in the fragment.'

 

In the treatment of Yin-ssu (possibly the eighth son

of K'ang-hsi), Da Costa, having taken the Chinese name

of Lo Huai-chung, tells his patient of the ensuing

application of two medicines, namely bashiri g'ang and

los ma ni for his diseased legs:...'Sir, you will be

able to recover if after having taken a period of

rest; for a certain amount of time you will preserve

absolute immobility. Now apply a dose of bashiri g'ang

and rub it in.[....] Afterwards, if your left foot,

being swollen, should hurt too much, you must not move

it at all. Next year, in spring,when your left foot is

healed, certainly the pus will come out completely.

Now, furthermore, you can treat them with los ma

ni[...]. Even if [the pus] of the two feet is not

harm- ful anymore, inside there will still be some

poison. Next time, when I shall visit you in Jehol I

will need the daylight.'

 

Gout is suspected in Yin-suu's case, and Da Costa

alludes to this in several places, in reference to

swollen feet, and more elusively, that he was treating

him in semi-darkness. The Traditional

 

Bai Jie Zi (Sinapis Albae Semen), White Mustard seed,

could very well have been used as a poultice, it being

a well-known rubifacient(bringing blood to the surface

of the skin). It is also mentioned in the more modern

U.S. Dispensatory, being used in cataplasms and

plasters applied directly to the skin. To open the

sores and drain them would require either lancing or a

stimulant to promote blood flow.

 

As to the other medicine los ma ni, we are given more

of a clue, as ...Next time[....] I will need the day-

light.' Several plant families contain species liable

to cause phytophotodermatitis. They include the

Umbelliferae, of which Ammi majus has been known for

centuries. Ammi majus (= Aegopodium podagrarium L.)

occurs in Europe, Siberia, and west Asia, yet may not

have been well-known to the Chinese at the time; and

being a temperate species, possibly known to the

Manchus. The photoreactivity of the plant depends on

phototoxic mechanisms, when activated by longwave

ultraviolet radiation (UVA)('Photophytodermatitis,'

Photodermatology, 1984, Apr.; 1(2), pp.

65-75)

 

Aegopodium podagraria, Bishop's Weed, Goutweed is a

plant most likely used in monastic medicine for

centuries. The main characteristic pharmaco-dynamic of

Goutweed is that it is a powerful anti-coagulant.

There is a model method for studying toxicity in

sheep. This is known as the Ferula Interaction, named

after Ferula communis (Giant Fennel), for, 'It

con-tains a potent anticoagulant and induces severe

haemorrhagic diathesis in grazing ewes, or similar

changes in utero in lambs. These and other teratogenic

changes have been seen in babies from mothers reiceiv-

ing the anti-coagulant Warfarin during pregnancy...

Ammi majus(Bishop's Weed) causes severe opthalmic

changes, in particular, pigmentary retinopathy in

photosensitized domestic fowl. The photoactive

principle is currently used in the treatment of

psoriasis in man, and such patients should be examined

for possible occular toxicity.'

('Examples of Poisonous Plants in Israel of Importance

to Animals and Man,' Shlosberg and Egyed, Arch.

Toxicol., Suppl., 1983(6), pp. 194-6).

 

Was Da Costa giving Yin-ssu the best treatment that

Western medicine had to offer? We cannot discount the

possibility that Bishop's Weed was known in the Manchu

materia medica. Yet in unskilled hands, it is a

dangerous herb, as an abstract from a Moroccan case

clearly shows, for 'The injudicious use of a

systematically administered herb containing psoralens

derived from the fruits of Ammi majus in combination

with exposure of the skin to the sun caused severe

phototoxic dermatitis in a Moroccan patient with

vitiligo. She was disappointed in the treatment by the

dermatologist. A family member advised her to start

treatment with herbs. The identification of the herbs

by microscopic, chromatographic, and biological tech-

niques demonstrated that they contained the linear

furanocoumarins (psoralens)5-MOP, 8-MOP, and oxy-

peucedanin, each in concentration of approx. 1%.

Because of the large immigrant population in our

country, we expect to see more cases in the future.'

(Phototoxic Dermatitis Following use of Ammi Majus

Fruit for Vitiligo,' Ossenkoppele, van der Sluis, van

Vloten, Academisch Ziekenhuis, afd. Dermatologie,

Utrecht, Ned. Tijdschr. Geneeskd., 1991, 135(11): pp.

478-80).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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