頭髮、疾病與醫療——以中國漢唐之間的醫學文獻為主的初步探討

Medical Knowledge and Uses of Hair in Traditional China

林富士(Fu-Shih Lin)

《中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊》 71本1分 (2000/03) Pp. 67-127

摘要

在傳統中國社會中，頭髮具有無比的重要性。「髮式」往往成為族群、年齡、性別、身分、地位和文明的標識，髮質的良窳則被認為是衡量美麗與健康的標準，許多的法律和習俗也都和保護頭髮有關。此外，頭髮通常也是中國巫術和儀式中不可或缺的物件。然而，更值得我們注意的是，以中國的醫藥傳統來說，頭髮被認為是構成生命的主要元素之一。因此，藉著頭髮的品質、顏色、數量和長度，便可以診斷一個人的性格和身心狀況，而種種養護頭髮的方法也屢屢見於記載。此外，頭髮還被用以治療各種疾病，同時也被認為是造成疾病的原因。這些有關頭髮的觀念和習俗充分顯示，對淤頭髮的認知，傳統中國社會與現代人似乎有非常大的差異。

關鍵字

疾病 ； 醫療 ； 頭髮 ； 身體

並列摘要

1. Introduction
In 1911 huge numbers of Chinese in Mainland China and in Taiwan started to cut off their queues. Although this was not the first time Chinese people changed their hair style, it was the first time the Chinese changed their hair-style from long to short. Moreover, it should be noted that Chinese changed their hair styles for a variety of reasons. For instance, unlike their predecessors in the 12th, 13th and 17th centuries and their 20th century contemporaries, Chinese people in Taiwan were not at first forced by the government to change their hair-styles, and had very unique reasons for cutting off their queues.
Taiwan was occupied by Japanese forces in 1895. After establishing themselves on the island, Japanese officials soon determined that the queue, footbinding and opium-smoking were the three most intolerable ”bad customs” in Taiwan. They did not, however, try to change these customs by force. On the contrary, they decided to transform these customs gradually by education. In 1911 these efforts were assisted by a journalist and a traditional Chinese physician who promoted a movement for encouraging people to cut their queues. They soon received support from many people and the Japanese colonial government. The leaders and supporters of this movement believed that the queue was not only an obstacle to the assimilation of Taiwanese (Chinese in Taiwan) to Japanese culture, but also a symbol of backwardness and a retreat from the new civilization (i.e. Western or modern civilization). They further attempted to buttress these symbolic arguments with more practical claims that the queue or long hair was inconvenient and unhygienic.
The movement for cutting queues in 1911 indicates that in the early 20th century while Chinese people in Taiwan still regarded hair as a symbol of ethnic and cultural identity, some of them turned their attention to biological and hygienic problems relating to hair. This was the first time in Chinese history that medical issues played an important role in the decision to change hair styles. This case also suggests that an attitude of new medical knowledge about hair had recently emerged in Taiwan. But what was the traditional medical knowledge of hair? Did traditional Chinese physicians have anything to say about hair style? Did they recommend that people have long or short hair? How did they treat problems caused by hair? To answer these questions, ideally we would examine all extant Chinese medical texts. However, in this short article, I focus on those texts edited or written in medieval times (roughly from the third century B.C. to the tenth century A.D.) to explore Chinese traditional knowledge and practices relating to hair.
2. Hair and the Body
For modem Western physicians, insulation against cold and heat seems to be the only function of hair. In other words, physiologically hair is not a particularly important part of the body. But for traditional Chinese physicians, hair is one of the basic components of one's existence; hair is as important as one's spirit, brain, bone, flesh, muscle, skin, stomach, vessel system or blood. Medieval physicians pointed out that hair starts to grow at the embryonic stage, and a baby born without hair would die pre-maturely. They also observed that many factors could affect the growth and color of hair.
Age was considered to be one of the major factors contributing to changes in hair. In general, it was said that the length and number of a woman's hair starts to increase at seven and reaches its zenith at twenty-eight. The number starts to decrease at thirty-five and the color starts to turn white. The length and number of a man's hair increases at eight and decreases at forty, while the color gradually turns white at forty-eight. Furthermore, it was said that a man usually loses all his hair at sixty-four.
Moreover, medieval physicians stated that the general health of the body could affect the length, color, quality and number of hair, since hair is closely related to other aspects of the body, including the circulation tract system, the visceral systems, and vital substances (such as: qi, jing, blood and body fluids). In other words, the condition of hair was regarded as an indicator of the body's health or disorder.
3. Hair and Disease
Since hair was thought to be closely related to other aspects of the body, traditional Chinese physicians argued that changes in the hair's normal condition usually was the result of one of various diseases. Hair loss, baldness, white hair, yellow hair, red hair, dried and withered hair usually were considered to be a symptom or syndrome of various diseases. However, these symptoms were also regarded as diseases of the hair itself. In addition, the pediculosis caused by lice was also thought to be a disease of the hair. Regarding causes of hair diseases, one may argue that most hair diseases were a normal result of aging or, as a symptom or syndrome of disorder caused by other diseases. However, most traditional Chinese physicians basically followed the theory of the Huangdi neing and divided the causes of diseases into two categories, ”inner causes” and ”outer causes.” The Six Excesses and wounds and injuries from animals and insects were called ”outer causes.” While the seven emotions, lack of moderation in eating and drinking, and overexhaustion were called ”inner causes.” Authors of medieval medical texts did indeed attribute hair diseases to wind, moisture, overexhaustion, incorrect diet, injury by burning, irregular combing and washing of the hair, inappropriate eating, drinking and sleeping, as well as the seven excessive emotional activities.
Sometimes hair could cause trouble to the body. The problem of hair choking the throat is mentioned in several medical texts. Physicians further believed that hair could get into the stomach with food and create an abdominal mass. Moreover, traditional Chinese physicians believed that shampooing the hair in inappropriate ways (such as shampooing immediately after a heavy meal) could cause hundreds of diseases, including headaches caused by wind, blurred vision, baldness, toothache, deafness, Bi-syndrome involving the kidney, flaccidity of the lower limbs, perforated scrofula with fistula, etc. Also some epidemic febrile diseases such as wenbing, shanghan and shiqi were thought to recur because of excessive combing of the hair. In addition, Sun Simiao claimed that infants could contract a disease called kewu [infantile convulsive seizure due to fright], if someone’s hair attached to their clothes or shoes.
4. Healing or Prevention of Hair Diseases
Since hair was closely related to diseases, almost all traditional medical texts mentioned several among many methods used to care for the hair or to cure hair diseases.
Drugs were frequently prescribed to prevent or cure hair diseases. The sizeable number of recorded prescriptions can be divided into three categories: (1) drugs for ingestion, (2) drugs for washing, (3) drugs for application or dying.
For traditional Chinese physicians, shampooing without drugs was also efficacious for hair diseases. In this case, however, a specific day for washing hair seems to have been emphasized.
Combing the hair was also thought to have efficacy for preventing or curing hair diseases. The most obvious function of combing the hair was to remove lice. In addition, the Yangsheng fang [Prescriptions for Nourishing Life] suggested that one had to frequently comb hair in order to prevent the loss of hair and the appearance of white hair.
In addition to combing the hair, the Yangsheng fang and other medical books provided several types of gymnastic practice [daoyin], through which one could cure or prevent white hair.
The simplest way to treat white hair is to pull them out. But even after this is done, white hair soon appears again. Hence, traditional Chinese medical texts suggested three methods to prevent white hair from growing back after removing all of them. The first is to apply drugs at the place where the white hair came out. The second is to remove white hair on some specific days called ”felicitous days for removing white hair.” The third is to bum white hair on some specific days such as the jiazi day and the yin day.
5. Hair and Therapy
Although hair could directly or indirectly cause diseases, traditional Chinese physicians nonetheless found it quite useful for therapy. They used hair as a drug, and suggested that people comb and wash the hair in order to cure diseases. They also used hair as a medical instrument to examine diseases and treat urgent cases. Moreover, they maintained that disheveling, pulling and rubbing the hair was an important technique for the practice of nourishing life. Furthermore, they stated that one could dishevel the hair to call down deities to cure diseases. Some of them seemed to believe that hair possessed magical power in treating sickness.
We do not know when Chinese physicians began using hair as a drug, but in the earliest extant pharmacopoeia, the Shennong bencao jing, hair was listed as a drug used to cure difficulties in urination, infantile epilepsy, and adult convulsion. It is noteworthy that hair was the first and only ”human drug” registered in the Shennong bencao jing. From that time onward, hair has appeared in virtually every Chinese pharmacopoeia and the range of its application has become broader and broader. Hair, however, was not only used as a single-ingredient recipe, but was also used with other drugs as a compound prescription. In short, most traditional Chinese medical works admitted the medicinal value of hair and provided many prescriptions which could be used to cure various diseases.
In addition to hair diseases, combing the hair was thought to have therapeutic value in treating other diseases. For example, Sun Simaio maintained that one should comb one's hair one hundred times after having taken the Powder of Radix Saposhinokoviae (fangfeng san) with wine, in order to cure dizziness due to wind (fengtouxuan). We may surmise that, from the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, the main function of combing the hair is to dispel pathogenic wind or qi from the body.
The therapeutic values of shampooing was thought to be similar to those of combing the hair. Shampooing, with or without drugs, was thought to prevent or cure various hair diseases. The medical texts specifically point out the value of shampooing for treating diseases such as headache caused by wind, infectious epidemics, and syndromes caused by taking mineral drugs. However, various sources derived from Taoist writings all emphasized that one must wash one's hair on felicitous days.
In traditional China, under ordinary circumstances people were expected to tie up their hair. However, some people intentionally left their hair in disarray to express their protest against rigid Confucian etiquette or to practice certain rituals. For instance, disheveled hair was a part of the shamanistic costume in ancient and medieval China. For the shaman, hair was a source of power, but only when it was unbraided. We may speculate, then, that unbraiding the hair was a technique for dealing with spirits and combatting demons. Actually a medical text instructed people with urgent cases to unbraid the hair in order to call down the star deity of one's own destiny. Also, in ancient medical texts, unbraiding the hair was regarded as a requirement for practicing the technique of nourishing life and to treat various diseases, including infertility, pain in the joints, and a syndrome of the kidney meridian. Pulling or rubbing the hair was another important technique in the exercise for nourishing life.
The technique of pulling the hair was also employed as a first-aid method. For example, in treating someone who has attempted to hang himself/herself, an important part of the treatment was to pull on the hair and practice cardiac massage until the patient resuscitated. The technique of pulling on the hair was also used to treat women who remain in a state of delirium after delivery.
Hair was also a useful therapeutic instrument. In medical texts, we can find at least five different cases. First, in a prescription for healing a patient who was unable to wake after a horrible nightmare, the hair functioned as a tube, through which the blood of a cock could flow into the patient's nose and throat. Second, hair was used as an instrument for the examination of disease. Third, hair was employed in order to induce vomiting. Fourth, hair was utilized as one part of a suppository. Fifth, in treating infantile thrush, lockjaw and aphthous stomatitis, the essential treatment was to use hair. The hair of the patient's parent or father was used especially to wipe the infant's mouth and tongue.
The use of hair in Chinese magic or shamanistic ritual was common, and we can even find a few sources indicating the magical uses of hair in medical texts. For example, the Ruyi fang [Satisfactory Prescriptions] explains that in order to make married couples love each other, one can bum twenty threads of hair taken from the female and put the ash under their sleeping mats. Similarly, the Zhenzhong fang states that to eliminate the hatred between a couple, one can bury hair in front of the stove, after which they will love each other. Hair could also be used for purposes of seduction. The Yanling jing [Canon of Extending Years] states that a man will become irresistibly attractive to women if he holds a rope made from fourteen threads of hair taken from a virgin. These cases can be regarded as magical remedies for gender relationships and ultimately for reproduction.
6. Conclusion
Clearly, for most traditional Chinese physicians and authors of medical writings, hair was an important object of perception and discourse. However, this study also indicates that religious ideas and practices seem to have had an impact on the formation and development of traditional Chinese medical knowledge and uses of hair. Many prescriptions or medical works such as the Zhouhou beijifang, Lingqi fang, Mingyi bielu, and Beiji qianjin yaofang were compiled or composed by eminent Taoist masters, including Ge Hong, Tao Hongjing and Sun Simiao. Furthermore, in the medical texts we can find many sources concerning Taoist concepts and techniques of ”nourishing life,” especially the care of hair or the use of hair in practice. It seems that religious Taoism regarded black and healthy hair as a symbol of beauty, vitality, longevity and even as a sign that one had reached immortality.
Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of traditional Chinese medicine, exemplified by medieval medical texts, hair was the source of much anxiety and required much care and attention. People were instructed to spend a large amount of time combing their hair everyday, and to wash their hair periodically in a proper way and in a proper place, in order to prevent or cure various diseases. Hair was also considered an essential cause of many ailments. A traditional Chinese physician, however, would not suggest that one cut one's hair short or shave one's head, since long hair is regarded as a sign of a healthy body and mind. Furthermore, in traditional China, an important function of hair style was to express one's ethnicity, age, gender, status, power and cultural identity, and many laws and customs existed in order to protect one's hair from damage caused by oneself or others. Hence, in traditional China, most people normally would not accept cropped hair. Against the backdrop of traditional Chinese attitudes toward hair, the Movement for Cutting Queues in 1911 can be seen to mark a break with the past, and a transformation of traditional Chinese medicine and concepts of the body under modem Japanese influences.

並列關鍵字

disease ； medicine ； hair ； body

參考文獻

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