Biographies, Autobiographies, and Memoirs
from History of the Three Kingdoms
Ch’en Shou (233–297)
Hua-t’o, whose style was Yüan-hua (“Primal Evolution”), was a man of the district of Ch’iao 2 in the kingdom of P’ei. Another name of his was Fu. As a peripatetic student in the area of Hsü-chou,3 he became familiar with a number of the classics. The senior administrator of P’ei, Ch’en Kuei, recommended him as a high-level candidate for appointment and the defender-in-chief, Huang Wan, offered him employment, but he did not accept either position. Hua-t’o had mastered the technique for nourishing one’s nature. Although his contemporaries thought that he must have been a hundred years old, he still looked hale and hardy.
Hua-t’o was also highly skilled in prescribing medicines. In curing illnesses, the decoctions that he prepared required only a few ingredients. His mind was so adept at dividing up and compounding according to the right proportions that he did not have to weigh the different components of his medicines with a balance. Once the decoction was boiled thoroughly it could be drunk. Hua-t’o would tell the patient how to take the medicine and then he would go away, after which the patient’s condition would promptly improve.
If Hua-t’o employed moxibustion, he would only burn punk in one or two places and in each place he only made seven or eight separate cauterizations, to which the disease would rapidly respond during the course of its elimination. If he employed acupuncture, it was also only in one or two places. As he inserted the needle, he would instruct the patient, “I am going to guide the point to such-and-such a spot. When you feel it reach there, tell me.” As soon as the patient told him that the point had already reached the designated spot, he would withdraw the needle and the sickness would likewise be virtually alleviated.
If a sickness were concentrated internally where the effect of acupuncture needles and medicines could not reach it, Hua-t’o would recognize that it was necessary to operate. In such cases, he would have his patients drink a solution of morphean 4 powder5 whereupon they would immediately become intoxicated as though dead and completely insensate. Then he could make an incision and remove the diseased tissues. If the disease were in the intestines, he would sever them and wash them out, after which he would stitch the abdomen together and rub on an ointment.6 After a period of about four or five days, there would be no more pain. The patient would gradually regain full consciousness and within a month he would return to normal.
When the late wife of the senior administrator of Kan-ling7 was six months pregnant, a pain in her abdomen caused her disquietude. Hua-t’o examined her pulse and said, “The fetus is already dead.” He had someone8 manipulate her abdomen to discover the position of the fetus, saying that it would be a boy if it were on the left and a girl if it were on the right. The person reported that it was on the left. Thereupon a solution was used to cause an abortion and, indeed, the dead fetus was a male. After that, the lady swiftly recovered.
The district subofficial functionary Yin Shih was tormented by discomfort in his limbs. His mouth was parched, he could not abide the sound of other people’s voices, and it was not easy for him to pass urine. “Let us try giving him hot food,” said Hua-t’o. “If we can get him to break into a sweat, he’ll recover. If he does not sweat, he’ll die after three days.” So hot food was prepared for him to eat but he did not produce any sweat. “The vital breath of his viscera has already been extinguished within.” Indeed, the result was as Hua-t’o predicted.
The commandery subofficial functionaries Ni Hsün and Li Yen came together to see Hua-t’o. Both had headaches and felt feverish; their complaints were exactly the same. Hua-t’o declared, “Hsün should receive a purgative and Yen should receive a febrifacient.” Someone called Hua-t’o’s prescription into question, to which he responded, “Hsün’s firmness is external and Yen’s firmness is internal, so it is fitting that their treatment should be dissimilar.” Whereupon he gave each of them the appropriate medicine. By dawn the next day they had both improved.
Yen Hsin of Salt Sluice9 and several others were waiting for Hua-t’o. No sooner had he arrived than he said to Hsin, “Are you feeling all right?”
“Just as usual,” replied Hsin.
“You have a severe illness which I can see in your face,” said Hua-t’o. “You had better not drink so much wine.”
After they had sat together for a while, everybody returned to their own places. When he had gone several tricents, Hsin suddenly became dizzy and fell out of his cart. Someone helped him get up and took him back to his home. He died that night.
The late local inspector, Tun Tzu-hsien, had been ill but was already convalescing. He paid a visit to Hua-t’o, who felt his pulse and said, “You’re still depleted and won’t be able to recover. Don’t overexert yourself. If you engage in intercourse, you will die soon and, at the moment of death, your tongue will hang out several inches.”
When Tun’s wife heard that he had gotten over his illness, she came from a distance of more than a hundred tricents to look in on him. That night they had sex and, within three days, Tun suffered a relapse that was in all particulars just as Hua-t’o had said it would be.
The local inspector, Hsü Yi, fell ill and Hua-t’o went to look in on him. “Last night, after I had the subaltern in the medical section treat me by the insertion of acupuncture needles in the stomachic duct,10 I suffered a bitter fit of coughing. I felt as though I wanted to go to sleep, but couldn’t relax.”
“The needles should not have been inserted in the stomachic duct because they have mistakenly affected the liver. Your appetite will decrease from today and within five days you will be beyond saving.”
The illness progressed as Hua-t’o had said it would.
The two-year-old baby boy of Ch’en Shu-shan, who was from Tung-yang,11 became ill and was experiencing diarrhea. At first he cried a lot but, with each day, the baby was becoming thinner and more listless. Ch’en asked Hua-t’o what the problem was and Hua-t’o replied, “His mother is pregnant and her vital yang breath is being directed inward toward the nourishment of the fetus, leaving her milk coldly devoid. Since the baby acquired this coldness from his mother, it will be impossible to cure him right away.” Hua-t’o gave him a pill made of Aster fastigiatus and three other ingredients. After ten days, the child’s illness was eliminated.
A woman of P’eng-ch’eng 12 went to the toilet in the middle of the night and was stung on the hand by a scorpion. The pain was so unbearable that all she could do was groan. Hua-t’o had the woman soak her hand in a tepid decoction with the result that she was finally able to fall asleep, but several attendants had to keep changing the decoction to ensure that a constant warmth was maintained. She recovered completely by dawn.
The army subaltern, Mei P’ing, having fallen ill, disenrolled and returned home, which was in Kuang-ling.13 While he was still two hundred tricents away, he stopped off at the home of a relative. Before long, Hua-t’o also happened to visit the owner of the house who requested that he examine P’ing. Hua-t’o did so and told him, “If you had seen me earlier, sir, you could have avoided coming here. Your sickness has already solidified, so you had better go home quickly to see your family, for in five days it will all be finished.” P’ing went back to his home immediately and everything transpired as Hua-t’o had predicted.
Hua-t’o was walking along the road when he saw someone suffering from a blocked pharynx. He was fond of eating, but could not get anything down. The members of his family had put him in a cart with the intention of taking him to a doctor. When Hua-t’o heard the man’s moaning, he stopped the cart and went over to examine him, saying, “Just now I passed a biscuit seller by the side of the road who had some vinegar with mashed garlic. If you procure three pints from him and drink it, the sickness will go away of its own.”
They proceeded to do as Hua-t’o had directed and the man immediately vomited a snakelike parasite. He hung it from the side of his cart and went off to visit Hua-t’o to thank him. Hua-t’o had not yet returned, but his children who were playing outside the gate saw the man coming toward them and said to each other, “He must have met our old man. You can tell by the sickness-causing thing that is hanging from the side of his cart.” The patient went inside to sit down and saw hanging on the north wall of Hua-t’o’s house some ten-odd snakelike parasites the same as his own.
Then there was a commandery governor who was sick. Hua-t’o suspected that the man would be healed if he really got angry, so he accepted many payments-in-kind from the man but did nothing to cure him. Before long, Hua-t’o abandoned the man and went away, leaving behind a letter in which he cursed the man. As expected, the governor flew into a great rage and ordered his men to catch up with Hua-t’o and kill him. The governor’s son understood what was going on and told the functionaries not to pursue Hua-t’o. Because the governor became so tremendously angry, he vomited several pints of black blood, upon which he recovered.
Then there was a high official who was feeling uncomfortable and to whom Hua-t’o said, “Your sickness is deep-rooted, sir, so I would have to cut open your abdomen to remove it. But you won’t live more than ten years longer in any event and the sickness will not kill you. If you can endure the sickness for ten more years, by that time you will also have achieved the peak of your longevity, so it’s not worth undergoing an operation on account of this sickness.” But the official could not bear the pain, so he insisted that it be removed, whereupon Hua-t’o did the operation. The official’s complaints were promptly alleviated, but he died in ten years after all.
The governor of Kuang-ling, Li Teng, had an illness which caused him to be distressed by a feeling of stuffiness in his chest. He also had a red face and no desire for food. Hua-t’o took his pulse and said, “Your honor, there are several pints of parasitic bugs in your stomach and you are on the verge of developing an ulcer. This was caused by eating raw fish.” Whereupon he prepared two pints of a decoction for the governor. Hua-t’o had him drink one pint first and then after a little while had him finish the remainder. In the space of time that it takes to eat a meal, the governor vomited up three pints or so of parasites. They had red heads and were all wriggling; half of their bodies looked like sashimi.14 The discomfort that he had experienced was immediately relieved. “This sickness will erupt after three years. If you are attended by a good doctor, he will be able to save you.” The sickness did indeed erupt after the specified period. At the time, Hua-t’o was not in the area and the governor died as Hua-t’o had said he would if he did not have a good doctor.
Ts’ao Ts’ao 15 heard about Hua-t’o and summoned him to court where he henceforth was often in attendance. Ts’ao Ts’ao suffered from blustery headaches. Whenever an attack came on, he would become dizzy and confused. Hua-t’o would employ acupuncture treatment at the diaphragmatic transport insertion point and the condition would be alleviated as soon as the procedure was carried out.
The wife of General Li was quite sick and Hua-t’o was called to examine her pulse. “She was injured during pregnancy,” said Hua-t’o, “but the fetus did not miscarry.”
“I was informed not only that she had truly been injured during pregnancy,” said the general, “but that the fetus had also miscarried.”
“My reading of her pulse is that the fetus has not yet miscarried,” said Hua-t’o.
The general believed that Hua-t’o’s diagnosis was incorrect. After Hua-t’o went away, the lady improved slightly. A hundred days later, however, she was again beset by sickness. When they called Hua-t’o once more, he said, “The indications of her pulse are that there is still a fetus. Initially, she had conceived twins, but one of them came out first during the miscarriage. She must have lost a lot of blood then, so that the second child was not born on time. The mother herself was unaware of this and other people did not realize it either. Since there was no longer any movement toward parturition, the child could not be born. The fetus then died, but the pulse did not return to normalcy because the dead fetus desiccated and stuck to the mother’s spinal column and it is this which caused her much pain along the spine. Now she ought to be given a decoction and I will insert acupuncture needles in one spot, then the dead fetus will come out.” After the decoction was given and the acupuncture treatment carried out, the woman experienced sharp pain as though she were going into labor. “This dead fetus has already been dried up for a long time and cannot come out by itself. It is necessary for someone to probe for it and pull it out.” And, indeed, they found a dead baby boy with hands and feet that were completely formed. Its color was blackish and it was about a foot or so in length.
Examples of Hua-t’o’s superlative skills are in general of this sort. However, since he was originally a scholar, he often regretted that he was looked upon as a physician by profession. Later, when Ts’ao Ts’ao took personal control of the affairs of state, his sickness intensified and he had Hua-t’o attend him exclusively. “It will be difficult to heal you in the near term, but if we maintain a program of treatment over a longer period, it will be possible to extend your life-span.”
Hua-t’o had been far away from home for a long time and wished to return, so he said, “I just received a letter from home and would like to go back temporarily.” After he reached home, excusing himself on the grounds of his wife’s illness, he requested several extensions of his leave and did not come back. Ts’ao Ts’ao repeatedly wrote letters to Hua-t’o calling him back, and he issued imperial orders to the commandery and district authorities to send Hua-t’o back. Proud of his ability and finding it distasteful to wait upon others for a living, Hua-t’o continued to procrastinate in setting off on the journey.
Ts’ao Ts’ao became very angry and dispatched men to go and investigate. If Hua-t’o’s wife were really sick, Ts’ao Ts’ao would present him with forty bushels of lentils and be lenient in setting a date when his leave would expire. But if Hua-t’o were prevaricating, then he was to be apprehended and escorted back. Consequently, Hua-t’o was handed over to the prison at Hsü,16 where, after interrogation, he confessed his guilt. Interceding on behalf of Hua-t’o, Hsün Yü 17 said, “Hua-t’o’s techniques are truly effective and people’s lives are dependent upon them. It is fitting that you be clement toward him.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ts’ao Ts’ao. “Do you think there aren’t any other rats like him under heaven?”
Whereupon the investigation against Hua-t’o was concluded with the announcement of the death penalty. When Hua-t’o was about to be executed, he brought out a scroll with writing on it and handed it over to the jailer, saying, “This can preserve people’s lives.” Fearful of the law, the prison subaltern would not accept it, nor did Hua-t’o force it upon him. Instead, he asked for a fire in which he burned the scroll.
After Hua-t’o’s death, Ts’ao Ts’ao’s blustery headaches did not go away. “Hua-t’o could have cured me,” said Ts’ao Ts’ao, “but the scoundrel prolonged my illness, wishing thereby to enhance his own position. Thus, even if I hadn’t put the knave to death, he never would have eradicated the source of my sickness.” Later on, when his beloved son Ts’ang-shu was critically ill, Ts’ao Ts’ao said with a sigh, “I regret having put Hua-t’o to death and causing my son to die in vain.”
Formerly, the army subaltern Li Ch’eng suffered from a cough that prevented him from sleeping day and night. Occasionally he would vomit bloody pus. When he asked Hua-t’o about this, Hua-t’o said, “Your illness is an intestinal ulcer. What you’re spitting up when you cough does not come from the lungs. I will give you two-tenths of an ounce of a powder that should make you vomit a little over two pints of bloody pus. When that’s over, you’ll feel better and, if you nurse yourself, in a month there will be some small improvement. If you take good care of yourself for a year, you’ll return to full health. After eighteen years, you’ll have a minor recurrence, but if you take this powder it will be alleviated again. If you cannot obtain this medicine, you’ll surely die.” Hua-t’o gave Ch’eng an additional two-tenths of an ounce of the powder and he went away with the medicine.
Five or six years later, one of Ch’eng’s relatives developed the same sickness that he had. “You’re strong and healthy now,” he said to Ch’eng. “I’m on the verge of death. How can you bear to hide your medicine away, waiting for something unfortunate to happen, when your situation is not critical? Lend me the medicine now and when I get better I’ll ask Hua-t’o for some more for you.” Ch’eng gave the medicine to his relative and made a special trip to Ch’iao, but by that time Hua-t’o was already incarcerated and Ch’eng was so flustered that he could not bear to request the medicine. After the eighteen years were up, Ch’eng’s sickness did flare up and, since there was no medicine for him to take, it progressed till he died.
Wu P’u of Kuang-ling and Fan Ah 18 of P’eng-ch’eng 19 both studied with Hua-t’o. Using Hua-t’o’s methods of treatment, many people were completely cured by Wu P’u. “The human body needs exertion,” Hua-t’o told Wu P’u, “but it shouldn’t be pushed to the limit. Movement of the limbs facilitates the absorption of nutrients in food and enables the blood in the arteries to flow freely, preventing sickness from occurring. It’s like a door-pivot that never decays from bugs or worms because of the constant opening and closing. That’s why, when the ancient transcendents 20 practiced duction,21 they strode like a bear and turned their head backward like an owl. They elongated their waist and limbs and moved all of their joints, seeking to stave off old age. I have a technique called ‘the exercise of the five animals.’22 The first is the tiger, the second is the deer, the third is the bear, the fourth is the ape, the fifth is the bird.23 They may also be used to get rid of illness and are beneficial for the legs and feet because they are a type of duction. If there is discomfort somewhere in your body, get up and do one of my animal exercises until you’re soaking with sweat, then sprinkle powder on yourself. Your body will feel relaxed and you’ll have a good appetite.”
Wu P’u followed this regimen and lived to be more than ninety. His sight and hearing were still sharp and all of his teeth remained solidly in place. Fan Ah was good at acupuncture. Whereas ordinary doctors would say that on the back and in the area between the chest and the viscera one should not carelessly insert acupuncture needles, and that if one did insert them they should not go in more than four-tenths of an inch, Fan Ah would insert needles in the back up to one or two inches and, in the area of the solar plexus, the chest, and the viscera, he would insert them up to five or six inches, bringing about an immediate cure of the patient’s ailment. Fan Ah requested from Hua-t’o the recipe for an orally ingested medicine that would be beneficial to one’s health, and Hua-t’o instructed him how to make a powder of varnish tree leaves and herbe de flacq. The proportions are fourteen ounces of shredded herbe de flacq for each pint of shredded varnish tree leaves. Hua-t’o said that if one takes a long course of this medicine, it will get rid of the three worms,24 benefit the five viscera, make the body feel nimble, and prevent your hair from turning white. Fan Ah followed his words and lived to be more than a hundred years old. Varnish tree leaves are available everywhere, and herbe de flacq grows in Feng, P’ei, P’eng-ch’eng,25 and Ch’ao-ko.26
Translated by Victor H. Mair
The History of the Three Kingdoms is the official history of the three states—Wei, Shu, and Wu—that resulted from the breakup of the Later Han dynasty and that jockeyed for power in the perennial quest to [re]unite China. Among its biographies is to be found some of the most interesting writing in the dynastic histories. The material of the History of the Three Kingdoms was fictionalized in the popular novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
1. The reconstructed ancient Sinitic pronunciation of this phenomenal physician’s name was roughtly *ghwa-thā. It is quite likely that this name derives from an Indian source (Sanskrit agada [with the initial syllable lopped off] = “medicine”), as do a number of the stories recounted in this biography which have a suspiciously Ayurvedic character to them. Hua-t’o was many hundreds of years ahead of his time in medical knowledge and practice. The precise sources of his remarkable expertise remain to be investigated. It is perhaps significant, however, that the cities and towns in which Hua-t’o was active lay precisely in the area where the first Buddhist communities were established in China. Hua-t’o’s dates are traditionally given as 110–207. These, too, are compatible with the period of early Buddhist activity in China.
2. Corresponding to the modern-day district of Po in Anhwei province.
3. The area in Kiangsu north of the Yangtze and the southeast part of Shantung.
4. The Chinese text has ma-fei (literally, “hemp-boil,” hitherto unidentified), which appears to be a transcription of some Indo-European word related to “morphine,” which in turn is derived from Morpheus, the name of the god of sleep. Although morphine was not chemically isolated and identified until about 1805 by the German scientist Friedrich W. A. Sertürner, it is a naturally occurring substance, being the principal alkaloid of opium. It is conceivable that some such name as morphine was already in use before Sertürner as a designation for the anesthetic properties of this opium derivative or some other naturally occurring substance. If this is so, it would have enormous implications not only for the history of Chinese medicine, but also for the history of Indian and Western medicine. There are ancient Indian records which describe doctors traveling to the area of Bactria, where they learned acupuncture, cauterization, surgery, and external medicine.
5. The corresponding passage of Hua-t’o’s biography in the History of the Later Han, written over a hundred years after that by Ch’en Shou translated here, states that ma-fei powder was administered in an alcohol solution.
6. The corresponding passage in the History of the Later Han reads: “He would sever them and wash them out. Then he would remove the diseased portion[s] and, after that, he would sew [them/it] back up and apply a miraculous ointment.”
7. Modern-day Lin-ch’ing in Shantung.
8. Note that, due to strict rules of decorum, Hua-t’o took the woman’s pulse but could not touch her abdomen. Chinese physicians even later in history would “examine” female patients by pointing to a model rather than by actual contact with their bodies.
9. Yen-tu, the equivalent of modern-day Yen-ch’eng (“Salt City”) in Kiangsu.
10. An acupuncture point located four inches above the navel.
11. Northwest of modern-day T’ien-ch’ang district in Anhwei province.
12. Modern-day Hsü -chou in Kiangsu province.
13. The area around the modern-day city of Yangchow in Kiangsu province.
14. Raw fish strips.
15. The text here and below has T’ai Tsu (“Grand Progenitor”), a posthumous title conferred upon Ts’ao Ts’ao (155–220, the tyrannical founder of the Wei dynasty) for use in sacrificial ceremonies held in the ancestral temple.
16. Modern-day Hsü -chang in Honan.
17. Ts’ao Ts’ao’s adviser.
18. This is an unusual name and may indicate that the individual in question was a foreigner.
19. The area around modern-day T’ung-shan (“Copper Mountain”) in Kiangsu, location of the first known Buddhist community in China.
20. The word used here may refer to ancient Indian rishis (“holy men”).
21. Guiding of the vital breath through the channels of the body.
22. These postures are clearly related to the āsanas that are well known from yoga.
23. This passage is extremely important for understanding the yogic basis of Taoist physical regimens. It is discussed in detail in Victor H. Mair, “[The] File [on the Cosmic] Track [and Individual] Dough[tiness]: Introduction and Notes for a Translation of the Ma-wang-tui Manuscripts of the Lao Tzu [Old Master],” Sino-Platonic Papers (October 1990), 20: 38.
24. Different types of parasites that can eat away the five viscera.
25. Places around Hsü -chou in modern-day Kiangsu.
26. Southwest of modern-day T’ang-yang in Honan.