Apparatus XY

30Over the next hundred years, medical approaches to depression in women continued to expand in scope, as demonstrated in the works of Wang Kentang (1549-1613), one of the foremost medical writers of the Ming Dynasty. In his work Zhengzhi Zhunsheng (Standards of Diagnosis and Treatment of Medicine) he reveals his concept on emotions and the differences between the sexes. Wang states that both men and women could suffer from emotional illness (160). Unlike Wang Ji, he writes about depression (yiyu) and that it is part of the dian disorder of Loss of Heart/Mind Wind (shixinfeng) (161, also Agren 577). He believed people with yiyu exhibited certain emotional and behavioral symptoms: a refusal to comply with others, frustration with their lives, sense of helplessness, and mental absentmindedness. The patient could also become erratic, and be prone to outbursts of anger. Wang Kentang also writes that as yiyu did not have the same explosive character of severe kuang, and as it was a more chronic condition, he listed it under dian. Depression seems to be in Wang's estimation a long term illness, very similar to our modern idea of depression as a long term emotional disorder. In regards to women specifically, he states that while women and men could experience different symptoms of depression, a woman's biological make up created a "frailty of emotions", making them more susceptible to emotional imbalances including depression (160-2).

31Another medical concept about women's inherent susceptibility to depression was love or flower sickness (huabing). It was interpreted by some physicians as an actual medical disorder. Believed to have existed for centuries, love sickness was identified by an early Qing Dynasty physician named Chen Shiduo as the pathological outcome of unrequited love and manifested only in women. According to Chen, woman suffering from huabing would lose their sense of propriety and shame, and become desperate for love (Ng, 46). The women would withdraw, grow thin, and become "filled with sadness," a seemingly similar symptomology to disordered depression. Chen's definition of love sickness also places love as the main cause, unlike the other descriptions of depression in women that focus on more general terms. These ideas seem to be wide spread through time: these definitions and symptoms of love sickness are similar to the ones suffered by many poets, as their depression in many cases is connected to love.

32Over a span of approximately a thousand years then, from physicians Sun Simiao, Wang Ji, Wang Kentang and Chen Shiduo, their shared beliefs about depression and women seems to be that women are biologically more prone to depression, for various reasons. Due to the loss of blood or qi imbalances, women's emotions were unbalanced and they were likely to suffer mental and physical illness. Also, because they were either unable to control these emotions or were unable to release them, women also fell into depression. The reasons for women's depression also relied on certain beliefs that women were emotionally fragile and easily emotionally damaged always. There seem to be no exceptions to the general rule that all women were prone to depression.

33Even if women were naturally susceptible to depression, there were treatment options for depression. For treating women with depression a female healer would sometimes be called upon. Women healers in traditional China varied in roles and ability. One saying identifies the roles of women in healing: 'three kinds of old aunties and six kinds of old grannies' (san gu liu po). The three aunties are diviners like Buddhist or Daoist associated healers. The six old grannies referred to the medical positions women held such as medicine sellers, shaman healers, and midwives. There also was nuu yi (female doctors) that women went to see for a host of ailments. Unfortunately, these women healers did not leave any written accounts of treating women with depression, but there are cases written by one female healer that gives some information on women being treated for depression.

34Where we can gleam information on depression was in overall practices of the female physician such as Tan Yunxian (1461-1554 CE). She was a Ming physician and the only known one to have written a book on thirty one of her cases, Sayings of a Female Doctor (Furth 286). Tan Yunxian was a healer trained by her physician grandfather and healer grandmother. She became well known after her children had grown up and she was acceptable as an "old granny" by society. Her practice was exclusively for women and as her preface states, "Family members and women friends and acquaintances, disliking to be treated by a male, came streaming to me, and over time I hit upon amazing cures" (Furth 285). She credited her popularity among female patients to being a woman herself, but also to her reputation as an excellent healer.