I intended to write a post on menopause, an issue close to me, so consulted Sabine Wilms’s translation of the Qi Zhongfu’s 1220 text ‘Hundred Questions on Gynecology’. It references the classical stages of women first recorded in the Su Wen (Simple Questions) over 2000 years ago: 'When women reach the age of 2 times 7, their kidney qi is at its peak, and the Chongmai (Sea of Blood) and Renmai (Sea of Yin) stream and flow through. The menstrual blood gradually builds up and d