This course is the instruction of specialized Materia Medica and formula studies in the service of canonical Chinese medicine as practiced by Zhang Zhongjing in the Shanghan Lun and the Jingui Yaolue.
Canonical Chinese Medicine is the style of Chinese medicine practiced along the tenets codified in the Western and Eastern Han dynasty (approx. 200 BC- 200 CE) medical classics or canons. It is the foundation of both clinical and theoretical Chinese medicine as we know it. Canonical Chinese medicine is comprised of two main schools being the Yellow Emperor huangdi 黄帝school of Medical Canons yijing pai 醫經派and the Divine Farmer shennong 神农school of Canonical Formulas jingfang pai经方派.
Chapter seventy-four of the Great Treatise on the Essence of the Utmost Truth zhizhen yaodalun of the Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor huangdi neijing records the most encompassing and original rules in Chinese medicine pathology. The nineteen patterns, most commonly known as the Nineteen Lines on Pathology, are considered to be the most authoritative instructions on classical etio-pathology and the only discourse where a differentiation method based on the five phase energetics is presented.