Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Zhang Congzheng
Jin dynasty physician from Kaocheng who followed Liu Wansu and treated illness by expelling pathogens through sweating, vomiting and purging, set out in Confucians' Duties to Parents
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 Zihe · Hao Dairen · Zhang Dairen
Zhang Congzheng, courtesy name Zihe, known as Dairen, came from Kaocheng in Suizhou. The History of the Jin (Jinshi) says he mastered the classics of medicine, followed the methods of Liu Wansu with mostly cooling drugs, and often saved patients near death. Of the old therapies of sweating, purging and vomiting he made the most exact use, and they became known by his name; illness, he held, comes from invading pathogens, and once these are driven out the body recovers by itself. In the Xingding reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Jin he was summoned to the imperial medical service but soon left, returning home to discuss cases with friends such as Ma Zhiji and Chang Zhongming. Ma and others edited his writings as Confucians' Duties to Parents (Rumen shiqin), the title meaning that a filial scholar must know medicine. His official biography blames the harm done by quacks who copied his formulas without reading pulses on them rather than on him.
Life and times
Dates c. 1156 CE–c. 1228 CE