I have been aware of cupping for some time, because I married into a Chinese family and one of my wife’s sisters used this method of Chinese medicine.
However, I didn’t pay much attention to cupping until I wrote a post about Gwyneth Paltrow being Popular in China.
Researching the Gwyneth Paltrow post, I discovered that she believes in Chinese medicine and has used cupping. She even told Oprah, “It feels amazing and it’s very relaxing, and it feels terrific. It’s just one of the alternative medicines that I do instead of taking antibiotics.”
The history of Chinese cupping dates from 281 AD. It was an ancient Taoist medical practice and was widely used in the courts of Imperial China at the time. Its administration was first recorded by Ge Hong in an ancient tract called Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies.
In fact, medical education in China was elevated to a higher standard in 443 AD when Qin Cheng-zu petitioned Emperor Wen of the North and South Dynasty period to appoint physicians to teach medical students. Almost a thousand years later the first medical schools appeared in the West.
By 493 AD, the Imperial Academy had expanded to include lectureships and chairs for teaching Chinese medicine. – Shen-nong.com
Chinese medicine from the beginning focused on prevention to avoid illness where Western medicine has always focused on cures for illnesses after a life is threatened by diseases such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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