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Did Greeks beat Chinese on blood circulation …

Nature volume 405, page 993 (2000)Cite this article

Sir

I was drawn to read P.-L. Chau's letter about the Chinese discovering blood circulation1 by the provocative title “Chinese beat Harvey on blood flow” on the contents page. Chau quoted science historian Joseph Needham2 as saying that, in the medical treatise Su Wên (part of The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine), “Chhi Po says that ‘the flow in the tract and channel runs on and on, and never stops; a ceaseless movement in an annular circuit…’. Clearly the circulation of the blood and chhi was standard doctrine [in the second century BC]”.

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References

  1. Chau, P. L. Nature 404, 431 (2000).

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  2. Needham, J. & Lu, G. D. Celestial Lancets (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1980).

  3. Unschuld, P. U. Chinese Medicine (Paradigm, Brookline, 1998).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, The George Washington University Medical Center, 2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington DC, USA

    Tsung O. Cheng

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  1. Tsung O. Cheng
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Cheng, T. Did Greeks beat Chinese on blood circulation …. Nature 405, 993 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35016741

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