Anatomy atlas hidden in Chinese characters

"These Chinese characters unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb are the oldest anatomical atlases in the world."

On September 1, 2020, a research team led by Vian Shaw, an anatomy lecturer at Bangor University in the UK, published an article in the journal Anatomical Record stating that some Chinese characters unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb contain the world's oldest extant anatomical atlas. The Mawangdui Han Tomb was excavated in the 1970s near the Liuyang River, 4,000 meters east of Furong District, Changsha City, Hunan Province. This text containing the anatomical atlas appeared as a burial object in the tombs of Li Cang, the Marquis of Wu, his wife, and their son.

Chinese is recognized as one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn in the world. During the research, the first challenge the British medical team faced was how to understand the difficult ancient Chinese. The researchers wrote in the article: "There are many necessary skills to interpret them. First, researchers need to read the original Chinese text and then review the structures mentioned in the text through anatomical investigation."

After understanding the text written on the silk, the researchers found that the ancient silk texts can show the various parts of the human body represented by the "meridians". For example, the ulnar artery path in modern medicine, which is the main blood vessel in the forearm, is described in the ancient "meridians" as starting from "the center of the palm, along the middle of the radius and ulna of the forearm and parallel to the tendon, extending to the tendon of the biceps brachii, the armpit, and connected to the heart".

The illustrated anatomical atlas also mentions the "meridian" of the foot, which "starts at the big toe, runs along the inner side of the calf and thigh, and connects to the ankle, knee, and thigh. It passes through the adductor muscles of the thigh and wraps around the abdomen." This is actually what we now call the path of the great saphenous vein, which is responsible for bringing blood from the legs back to the heart.

The direct evidence from the anatomical atlas alone cannot fully prove that the atlas has sufficient scientific basis. In order to completely eliminate the possibility of fabrication, researchers began to explore how the ancient Chinese acquired knowledge of the human body and thus obtained the anatomical atlas. Through further research, they found that the atlas was completed by dissecting the human body.

As the old saying goes, "The body and hair are given by parents, and one should not damage them. This is the beginning of filial piety." How could someone dare to dissect a human body and record it on silk in the Han Dynasty? It turns out that for ordinary people, the body cannot be harmed at will, but the remains of prisoners can be disposed of at will. The "Book of Han: Biography of Wang Mang" records the dissection of the prisoner Wang Sunqing: "Wang Sunqing, a member of the Zhai Yi party, was captured. Wang Mang ordered the imperial physician, the Shangfang, and the skilled butcher to dissect him, measure the five internal organs, and guide his pulse with a bamboo mat to know the beginning and end, saying that it can cure diseases." Therefore, it is not surprising that an anatomical atlas was found in the Mawangdui Han Tomb.

Until now, many people believe that acupuncture therapy in traditional Chinese medicine is just a rule summarized from experience and cannot withstand rigorous scientific scrutiny. This article, through investigation, proposes that "this anatomical atlas predates and influences subsequent acupuncture literature", challenging the fallacy that "acupuncture anatomy has no scientific basis".

For thousands of years, Western scientists have studied human anatomy by dissecting corpses, but they rarely mention China, Persia, or India, even though these civilizations have long medical traditions. For example, the world's first cataract surgery is recorded in India in the fifth century BC. However, due to the subsequent loss of many ancient texts and the trend of medicine towards a Eurocentric view, people gradually believed that the oldest anatomical atlas of the human body came from Greece, written by ancient Greek doctors such as Herophilus and Erasistratus. But this Greek anatomical atlas has long been submerged in the long river of history, and only traces of its existence can be glimpsed in other works of the same period. "These Chinese characters unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb are the oldest anatomical atlas in the world," the researchers said.