조선시대 약용차에 대한 고찰

Abstract

Medicinal tea refers to the tea used to heal and prevent diseases. Tea has been widely used as a medicinal stuff to heal diseases for a long time, rather than used as a savory beverage, because most components of tea are beneficial to human health and are innoxious as well. Based on a compilation of Korean traditional medical books and other relevant literatures published in the era of Joseon dynasty, this study sought to deal with how tea was applied to medical treatment of diseases mainly in the same era. In the era of Joseon dynasty, there were a series of published or distributed medical books dealing with homemade herbal medicine, and the propagation of those medical books contributed to popularizing medicinal teas. In this era, the medicinal teas were used in various forms such as pellet (globule), powder and decoction. Particularly, they have been mainly prescribed to relieve or heal daily diseases such as cold, indigestion, headache and diarrhea. In addition, the medicinal teas were often prescribed as a part of folk medicine, which indicates that they were widely used for first aid. On the other hand, this study could re-highlight a variety of detailed applications of medicinal teas which are not so well known and are not yet handed down to this generation.