Objective

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To collect and screen records concerning the spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes in ancient books of traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） using an automated framework and to systematically explore the concept evolution of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes using the visualization method.

Method

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A total of 1 224 kinds of ancient book data in the Ancient Books of Traditional Chinese Medicine Database （V2.1） were analyzed using the automated testing tool Selenium WebDriver with the Python 3.8 programming language and the etree library of Lxml for automatic collection and statistics of the "book title" "author" "classification" "dynasty" "completion time"， and "informative abstract". After being checked and collated， the collected data were visually analyzed with Tableau （V2020.1.3） for figuring out the concept evolution of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes in the past dynasties from the perspectives of symptoms and signs， etiology and pathogenesis， principle-method-recipe-medicinal， and prognosis.

Result

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A total of 7 203 clauses were automatically collected from 989 ancient books. It was found that in the pre-Qin period， there were few ancient books related to the spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes， and the understandings were confined to the superficial symptoms or signs and the basic etiology and pathogenesis. From the Han to Sui and Tang dynasties， the related concepts gradually increased and the descriptions about the manifestations are more detailed than those in previous dynasties. The etiology， diagnosis， and treatment system of the spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes were further perfected. In the Song， Jin， and Yuan dynasties， such concepts as independent signs，symptoms， as well as nature and location of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes were enriched. In the Ming and Qing dynasties， a TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment system for spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes was formed， and the related concepts were gradually simplified and unified.

Conclusion

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The concepts of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes have undergone an evolution from simplicity to complexity and then back to simplicity. There are numerous ancient books discussing the concepts of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes， exhibiting a fluctuating yet rising trend with time. The automated framework enables the construction of a lightweight database of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes. Based on data visualization， the concept evolution of the spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes from ancient times to the present has been efficiently uncovered， which is conducive to tracing the origin and development of spleen and stomach diseases and syndromes in TCM. This has provided reference for related research of spleen and stomach diseases in modern Chinese medicine.