What does the seventh month of pregnancy have to do with waiting for rabbits to bump into stumps?

What follows is an excerpt from my work on Qi Zhongfu’s Hundred Questions on Gynecology, published as Channeling the Moon, Part Two in 2020.

QUESTION TWENTY: What is the Reason for Women’s Diseases Being Predominantly Engendered Due to Qì?

The following is my translation, first, of the original text of a formula from the “Hundred Questions of Gynecology” by Qi Zhongfu, and then a sweet discussion I happened to come across on this formula, by Wú Qiān from the Qing period.

In honor of this beautiful new moon that heralded the arrival of the “dragon month” a few days ago, this is a bit of a technical post where I consider the challenge of translating the innocuous-looking character 月 in gynecological literature. Basically, my conclusion is that this is a poster child for why, ultimately, it is impossible to translate certain words or phrases from classical Chinese into modern English in certain contexts. Let me show you how I arrived at that sad conclusion…

In the context of my most recent book publication, a translation and discussion of the first section of an important thirteenth century text on gynecology (read more here), I have been thinking a lot about the current state of clinical practice of what I call “traditional Chinese gynecology” in the West.

As a scholar who has closely studied and translated the works of Sun Simiao and early Chinese gynecological literature for several decades, the time has finally come for me to clear up mistaken views about this important figure and his work that I encountered some years ago. Given Sun Simiao’s significant contributions to Chinese medicine and to gynecology, he deserves to have someone speak up for him.