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Bian Que
Physician of the pre-Qin era named Qin Yueren, whom the Shiji shows reviving the heir of Guo and warning Lord Huan of his illness before a Qin rival had him murdered
In a dispensary, a tall wooden cabinet of many small drawers stands behind a stone mortar and pestle, with herbs hanging from the beams; a copper scale, a clay pot on a small lit stove and baskets of leaves sit in front, and one person with a basket walks in the herb garden.
Also known as Qin Yueren · Lu Yi
Bian Que was the name given to the physician Qin Yueren, whom the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) places at Zheng in Bohai. As a young innkeeper he received secret prescriptions from a guest, Changsang Jun, and then practised medicine across the states. His biography has him predict the recovery of the comatose minister Zhao Jianzi, revive the seemingly dead heir of Guo, and three times warn Lord Huan of Qi that a disease was moving from his skin to his blood and bowels, until it reached the marrow and killed him; the Han Feizi tells the same story of Duke Huan of Cai. In Qin the court physician Li Xi, knowing himself the lesser doctor, had him assassinated. Sima Qian wrote that all who spoke of the pulse in his day followed Bian Que, and the Han imperial catalogue lists an inner and an outer classic under his name, both lost.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; physician of the Spring and Autumn to Warring States era