Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Liu Wansu
Jin dynasty physician from Hejian who traced most illness to heat and fire, favoured cooling drugs, and wrote The Origin of Diseases in the Mysterious Workings of the Basic Questions
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 Zi Shouzhen · Zi Hao Tong Xuan Chu Shi · Liu Hejian
Liu Wansu, courtesy name Shouzhen, came from Hejian and lived under the Jin dynasty; he called himself the Recluse of Penetrating Mystery and is often known as Liu Hejian. The History of the Jin (Jinshi) repeats a story that a stranger called Master Chen made him drunk, and that when he awoke he understood medicine as if it had been handed to him. He wrote on the cycles of qi and on formulas, and, worried that ignorant doctors were spreading errors, composed The Origin of Diseases in the Mysterious Workings of the Basic Questions (Suwen xuanji yuanbing shi), annotating 288 key characters in over twenty thousand words and attributing many disorders to fire and heat. He favoured cooling drugs meant to quell heart fire and strengthen kidney water. The biography of Zhang Yuansu records that when Liu fell ill with a cold-damage fever, Zhang treated him successfully. His school is known as the Hejian current, and Zhu Zhenheng's teacher Luo Zhiti belonged to its second generation.
Life and times
Dates c. 1110 CE–c. 1200 CE