the most famous doctor in ancient china - huatuo

Hua Tuo is a famous physician of the Han Dynasty who is so widely respected that his name and image adorn numerous products (e.g., as a brand name for acupuncture needles and for medicated plasters) and a set of frequently used acupuncture points (called Hua Tuo Jiaji, see Appendix). He is known for the early qi gong exercise set known as the frolics of the five animals, in which one imitates the actions of tigers, deer, bears, apes, and birds; these practices were later incorporated into various health promoting martial arts practices, such as taijiquan. His name is always mentioned in relation to surgery, as he was considered the first surgeon of China, and one of the last famous surgeons of ancient China. He has been compared, in this regard, to Jivaka of India, who lived at the time of Buddha (about 500 B.C.) and was renowned for surgery, but had no significant successors until the modern era when surgery was reintroduced by Western doctors.

According to the limited existing reports of his life, it is said that Hua Tuo studied and mastered various classics, especially those related to medical and health measures, but also astronomy, geography, literature, history, and agriculture, when he was young. He was stimulated to pursue a career in medicine after seeing so many people die of epidemics, famines, and injuries from wars (Zhang Zhongjing also mentioned the epidemics as leading him to undertake medicine as a career). His father had died when Hua Tuo was seven. His family lived in poverty and his mother wanted him to pursue a career. So, he walked hundreds of kilometers to Xuzhou to access all the medical classics retained there and learned from a famous physician named Cai. He studied tirelessly while practicing medicine, and became expert in several fields, including acupuncture, gynecology, pediatrics, and surgery. For the latter, he invented various herbal anesthetics. One, known as numbing powder (Mafai San), was taken with alcohol before surgery. His ancient prescriptions are lost, but the ingredients are thought to include cannabis and datura, which had been recorded later, during the Song Dynasty, as an anesthetic.

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