Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Ye Tianshi
Qing physician of Suzhou whose dictated Discourse on Warm-Heat Diseases set out the four levels of defensive, qi, nutritive and blood, and whose case records became a standard text
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 Gui · Zi Tianshi · Hao Xiangyan · Ye Xiangyan
Ye Tianshi, personal name Gui, courtesy name Tianshi, literary name Xiangyan, came from Wu county in Jiangsu, where his family had moved from She county; his grandfather Ye Shi and father Ye Chaocai were both skilled physicians. The Draft History of Qing (Qingshi gao) says he lost his father at fourteen and studied with his father's pupils, grasping each point at once and soon surpassing his teachers. He wrote little himself. His Discourse on Warm-Heat Diseases (Wenre lun), said to have been dictated on a boat trip on Lake Tai and written down by his disciple Gu Jingwen, describes warm diseases moving inward from the defensive level to the qi level and then to the nutritive and blood levels. His case records, edited by Hua Xiuyun and others as A Clinical Guide with Case Histories (Linzheng zhinan yi'an), appeared after his death. He died at eighty, warning his sons on his deathbed that medicine may be practised but must not be taken lightly.
Life and times
Dates 1667 CE–1746 CE (by another account 1666–1745)