April Holloway, reporter and historical investigator for
Ancient Origins, joins the show to explain the newly unearthed Chinese medical
texts from Bian Que. Bian Que, according to legend, is the earliest Chinese
physician. April also talks about the history of Chinese foot binding, UFO cave
paintings, Grace O'Malley the Pirate Queen, and Vlad the Impaler to top it off.
www.ancient-origins.net
“If we want to set out on the arduous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first step begin to doubt everything that we previously accepted as correct and true. Can we still afford to close our eyes and stop up our ears because new ideas are supposed to be heretical and absurd?”
--Erich von Daniken
April Holloway may be one of the coolest people you could
meet and talk with about any historical topic that has a bit of woo woo in the
mix. She has written stories about topics from Chinese medicine to Vlad the
Impaler (who spawned the Dracula legends) and even about artwork possibly
depicting ancient alien astronauts whom visited the planet thousands of years
in our past. April Holloway is an Editor and Writer with Ancient Origins, a
website-based news organization, that seeks out one of the most important parts
of human beings—our beginnings. Ancient Origins bases itself on the
reconstruction and retelling of the story of our beginnings through an
exploration of lost civilizations, sacred writings, ancient places, unexplained
artifacts, and scientific mysteries.
In April’s story about the ancient bamboo medical books that
she broke on Ancient Origins, she discusses the 920 strips of bamboo that
archeologists unearthed in the city of Chengdu in China. Many of these strips
contain recipes for treating ailments that date back some 2000 years. These
bamboo strips, which were once widely used as writing material, were found with
other artifacts of the Western Han Dynasty. Many scholars have now confirmed
these to be the text of Bian Que, reported to be the first physician of China.
In these works, the studies of disease were primarily based upon taking the
patient’s pulse. These texts thus far include topics as far ranging as surgery,
gynecology, ophthalmology, and even trauma.
Speaking with April Holloway is a foray into the fantastical
part of history and she knows everything! Bringing up any subject with an interesting
or missing part will elicit a flowing barrage of historical facts and
interesting perspectives that may not be known to the general public. April is
one of those historians that truly love to tell the “rest of the story” that
never makes it into our textbooks or history classes. Come follow April now in
her groundbreaking story that promises to provide Chinese medicine with lost
history and the lost thought processes of one of the most influential people in
all of medicine.
“Men worry over the great number
of diseases, while doctors worry over the scarcity of effective remedies.”
All Topics Discussed with April Holloway from Ancient Origins:
- Bian Que Medical Texts
- Otzi Iceman
- History of Foot Binding
- UFO's in Caves
- Grace O'Malley Pirate Queen
- Vlad the Impaler
- Medieval Assassines
