Sacred Texts  Taoism 

Kung-Fu, or Tauist Medical Gymnastics by John Dudgeon [1895]

This is an extremely rare 19th century treatise on Chinese medicine, particularly the practices of the Kung Fu school. This has never been reprinted, and was scanned from a rare copy in the possession of the University of California. Although best known for a fighting style, Kung Fu includes a whole range of medical practices based on late Taoist alchemy. Dudgeon describes the use of yoga-like postures, movements similar to Tai Chi, the use of healing sounds similar to mantras, as well as massage and other techniques. He gives specifics of compounds used to treat a wide range of ailments in conjunction with the other methods. Dudgeon describes Taoist deities and sages, and gives extensive background on Chinese medical theory. This text is an invaluable look at the esoteric medical practices of the Chinese prior to the 20th century.

Important: This is an historical text which includes accounts of 19th century Chinese medical practices, presented for the purpose of education and entertainment. Please do not attempt any of the exercises or treatments described in this document without consulting your physician first.

Production Notes: I had to scan this from a PDF created by Google books, by printing out the PDF and then bulk-scanning the pages back in. Because of the poor quality of the printing in the original text, it is likely that there are additional errata which have not been corrected. Several sections which were printed entirely in small type have been presented in the default type size for purposes of readability. Locations of untranscribed Chinese characters in the text are indicated by a single hash sign (#). Due to the number of diagrams in the text, I have broken it down into files based on the number of images per file, so as to not have to thumbnail the images. --J.B. Hare, October 9, 2008.

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