ABSTRACT
A modern Chinese dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine says, under the heading xiao'er kewu: Since a child's vital powers are not yet solidly established, if it suddenly sees a strange person, or hears a strange sound, this can cause terror and weeping. The most obvious place to look for early references to kewu is the Huangdi neijing "The inner canon of the Yellow Lord". The chapter shows how the medical compendium describes the symptoms of kewu: In general kewu may be classed as one in which vomiting and purging of a virid, yellow or white colour, with liquid and food particles separated. Dragon-gall Soup longdan tang has been mentioned by Sun a little earlier when it was given as a treatment for the convulsive disorder xian, which it will be recalled has similar symptoms to those of kewu. Sun goes than any other early source in giving kewu the character of what might be called a "possession disorder".
