Virtually the only known detail of the life of Chao Yuanfang, Chinese physician and medical author, is that he was Medical Erudite (taiyi boshi) at the court of the Sui dynasty sometime between 605 and 616. In that position he supervised the compilation of the Zhubing yuanhou lun (Treatise on the Origin and Symptoms of Diseases), the first Chinese text comprehensively devoted to etiology and symptomatology. The work, which is integrally preserved, was submitted to the throne in 610.
The 50 chapters of the Zhubing yuanhou lun discuss more than 1,700 syndromes, classified into 67 categories of internal and external diseases. The final sections are concerned with gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics. A special feature of the text lies in its therapeutic methods. Rather than ingestion of drugs or acupuncture, Chao advocated a therapy based on such practices as diet and daoyin (a set of bodily postures, similar in some respects to Indian hatha yoga). The Huangdi neijing(Inner Canon of...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Rall, Jutta. Über das Ch'ao‐Shih Chu‐Ping Yüan‐Hou Lun, ein Werk der chinesischen Medizin aus dem 7. Jahrhundert. Oriens Extremus 14 (1967): 143–78.
Unschuld, Paul. Medicine in China; A History of Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Pregadio, F. (2008). Chao Yuanfang. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9378
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9378
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4559-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4425-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law