Overview
Chinese medical knowledge has been evolving for millennia. Its pearls of wisdom are strung throughout thousands of texts. As the English-language literature of Chinese traditional medicine is comparatively limited, many students elect to study Chinese language to deepen their knowledge of the subject. In addition to gaining access to endless written resources, students and practitioners who develop Chinese language skills tend to enjoy diverse options for advanced study, employment, and personal development in the field of Chinese medicine.
Paradigm Publications has developed its Chinese Medical Characters series in recognition of the crucial need to facilitate access to Chinese medical texts. This fourth text in the series, subtitled Diagnostic Vocabulary, provides an in-depth look at the most commonly used characters in the field of diagnosis and pattern identification. Readers will gain familiarity with the script, strokes, meaning, usage and pronunciation of the most common characters that comprise diagnostic terms. Often these terms provide additional insights that help identify an illness pattern. The relative frequency of these characters in medical Chinese makes this text a must for any student or practitioner to expand their knowledge of Chinese language and medicinal therapy.
Author Information
Nigel Wiseman, a native of the UK, studied Spanish and German at the Heriott-Watt University in Edinburgh, subsequently working as a French-English translator in Belgium while learning Chinese. He holds a doctorate in Complementary Health Sciences from Exeter University, and is the author and translator of a prodigious body of work on Chinese medicine, including such outstanding classics as Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, Fundamentals of Chinese Acupuncture, Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine, Shang Han Lun Yi Shi, Chinese Medical Chinese: Grammar and Vocabulary, and Introduction to the English Terminology of Chinese Medicine. A long-time resident of Taiwan, Dr. Wiseman is currently a lecturer of Chinese medical studies at Chang Gung Medical University in Taipei.
Zhang Yuhuan is the co-author of Who Can Ride The Dragon and Brief History of Qi. She is a native of Chengdu China and studied at Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine before coming to the United States. She is a translator certified for the U.S. Court system and is currently working on a text of International Standard Scalp Acupuncture.
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These five texts give the learner access to the Chinese vocabulary required to access Chinese Medical texts. Each is essentially a workbook that helps the student absorb the characters and their meanings by the age-old practice of drawing the characters in stroke order, called “filling in the boxes” by Chinese learners. The characters and their meanings are better retained combining multiple learning approaches.