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Traditional Chinese medicine has been practically unknown in the West until very recently. The pioneers in this subject were the Western missionaries(传教士) traveling and living in China starting from the 17th century. This was also the time when Western medicine was introduced to China for the first time. In later centuries, as political and cultural connections between East and West grew stronger and became more frequent, most aspects of Chinese culture, including traditional medicine, came to be an object of increasing curiosity in the Western world.
    Despite the growing interest, even in our times, and despite the fact that the major works of ancient European medical science have been translated into Western languages, the ancient Chinese medical writings, with a very few exceptions, are still not available in any of the main European languages. Thus the range of experts, who could make serious research in comparing medical systems of different cultures, when it comes to Chinese medicine, is limited to those few people who are able to read the original texts.
The beginning of healing art has been associated with Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor or Yellow Sovereign and the knowledge of pharmacology with Shennong. They hand down their wisdom in the Huangdi Neijing and the Shennong Bencao, respectively. Huangdi was the one who taught people the knowledge of raising silk-worms, riding boats and carriages. He was also the one who invented writing, music and medicine. Chinese historical records date the reigning period of Huangdi and, consequently, the Huangdi Neijing to 2698 B.C., a time which by no means can be regarded historically reliable. The book is one of the first, and undoubtedly the most important classic in the history of Chinese medicine. It had an enormous influence on the medical thought in later centuries. The book records the dialogs between the Yellow Emperor and some of his sage physicians on medical issues. The emperor asks questions about every possible aspect of medicine, including both theory and practice, and the teachers give detailed explanation on each topic.