literary/oral traditions

What I would really appreciate seeing is some serious work about what CM information was left out of books. What was only passed on orally? Does the lack of tuina literature mean there were no tuina physicians? Does the relative plethora of static point information mean dynamic points were not used?

What kind of person wrote books? What kind of person did not write books? Where did authors get their information from? Which authors were authors first and physicians second? Which authors were not physicians at all? What content in X book is first-hand? Second-hand?

This information will be helpful in resolving some social problems, but in most cases will not directly affect my ability to work with patients. However, as I have this strange obsession with determining what is and what isn't Chinese medicine, and I (to a certain extent) restrict my study to those which are CM, answering the above questions will have a big indirect impact on how I treat patients.

ps I have the impression that there might be some answers in the book "Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine" by Dr. Volker Scheid