“有病不治,常得中医”考

Meaning of ‘Having disease without treatment, always having a general effect'

"有病不治,常得中医"为医学谚语,但其语义却存歧见。文章溯源谚语出处,考察其文献语用情况,认为其义应为"有了疾病不去治疗,亦能得到中等水平的疗效"。其内涵反映了古代医疗水平低下,民众为防止医药之弊,退而求稳的医疗观念,其医学意义应该一分为二看待。

‘Having disease without treatment, always having a general effect' is a proverb in traditional Chinese medicine, but it is controversy over the understanding its semantic meaning. This paper traced its original sources and studied its pragmatic uses in documents. Consequently, it concluded that the proverb means ‘Illness can be partly cured without being treated', which implied that due to medical treatment skills were poor in ancient times, people preferred not to see doctors to avoid the adverse effect of medicine. But this concept should be viewed reasonably, as everything has its good and bad sides.