title: Motion sickness in ancient China: Seasickness and cart-sickness.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To find and analyze descriptions of motion sickness in Chinese historical sources.
  
  
  METHODS
  Databases and dictionaries were searched for various terms for seasickness and travel sickness, which were then entered into databases of full texts allowing selection of relevant passages from about the third to the 19th century ad.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Already in 300 ad the Chinese differentiated cart-sickness, particularly experienced by persons from the arid north of China, from a ship-illness experienced by persons from the south, where rivers were important for transportation and travel. In the Middle Ages, a third form of motion sickness was called litter-influence experienced by persons transported in a bed suspended between 2 long poles. The ancient Chinese recognized the particular susceptibility of children to motion sickness. Therapeutic recommendations include drinking the urine of young boys, swallowing white sand-syrup, collecting water drops from a bamboo stick, or hiding some earth from the middle of the kitchen hearth under the hair.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Chinese medical classics distinguished several forms of travel sickness, all of which had their own written characters. The pathophysiologic mechanism was explained by the medicine of correspondences, which was based on malfunctions within the body, its invasion by external pathogens like wind, or the deficit or surfeit of certain bodily substances such as the life force Qi. The concept of motion as the trigger of sickness initially appeared in a chapter on warding off the influence of demons and corpses, e.g., ancient magic and beliefs.
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Clinical Neurosciences (T.B., J.B., D.H.) and German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (T.B., D.H.), Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich; and Horst-Görtz-Institute for Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences (M.B.), Berlin, Germany. thomas.brandt@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Clinical Neurosciences (T.B., J.B., D.H.) and German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (T.B., D.H.), Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich; and Horst-Görtz-Institute for Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences (M.B.), Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Clinical Neurosciences (T.B., J.B., D.H.) and German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (T.B., D.H.), Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich; and Horst-Görtz-Institute for Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences (M.B.), Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Judy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Clinical Neurosciences (T.B., J.B., D.H.) and German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (T.B., D.H.), Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich; and Horst-Görtz-Institute for Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences (M.B.), Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Doreen
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huppert
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D009041:Motion Sickness / Q000266:history*