Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Wu Youke
Late Ming physician from Wu county who, after the epidemics of 1641, wrote the Treatise on Pestilence arguing that such diseases come from a distinct pestilential qi entering by mouth and nose
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 Ming Youxing · Zi Youke
Wu Youke, personal name Youxing, generally known by his courtesy name, came from Wu county in Jiangnan and lived on Dongting Hill in Lake Tai. The Draft History of Qing (Qingshi gao) relates that in 1641 epidemics swept the northern and southern metropolitan regions, Shandong and Zhejiang, and doctors treating them as cold-damage disorders achieved nothing. Working from the cases he had treated himself, he traced the cause of the outbreaks and in the following year completed his Treatise on Pestilence (Wenyi lun). It argues that pestilence comes not from wind, cold, heat or damp but from a separate kind of noxious qi in the world, which enters through the mouth and nose and lodges between the membranes, so that the sweating used for cold damage does not help. For the early stage he devised the Dayuan decoction. By treating pestilence apart from cold damage the book shaped the work of Qing writers on warm diseases such as Dai Tianzhang, Yu Lin and Wu Tang.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; finished Wenyi lun in 1642