(Minghui.org)(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2)
According tothe History of Song, Buddhist monk Hong Yun was a native of Changsha. His mother couldn't conceive for a long time. She and her husband religiously chanted Buddhist scriptures, and Hong Yun was born. When Hong was 13, he visited monk Zhi Ba of Kaifu Temple and asked to become a monk and to study medicine. He later traveled in the capital area and became a renowned doctor.
Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty summoned Hong to the palace and granted him the title of Guangli Master. At Emperor Taizong's request, Hong Yun submitted dozens of traditional medical prescriptions. Hong also visited Emperor Zhenzong and submitted prescriptions for different illnesses.
Hong Yun was especially skilled at making diagnoses by taking patients' pulses. He could also predict a person's lifespan accurately. Because of his great herbal medicine skills, the royal family and government officials often summoned him for treatment. Hong Yun passed away in the year 1004 at the age of 68.
According to the History of Yuan Dynasty, Li Gao came from a rich family in Zhending and became interested in medicine when he was young. He paid 1,000 taels of gold to learn medicine from the renowned doctor Zhang Yuansu, whom he studied under for many years.
Li Gao became very good at treating typhoid fever and ulcers, and he was exceptional at treating eye diseases. Because his family was wealthy and he didn't need to practice medicine for a living, he did it only as a hobby. Because of his incorruptible but standoffish character, no one dared to ask him for treatment unless it was urgent.
Wang Shanfu, an official in Beijing in charge of the wine trade, was one such urgent case. Wang's symptoms included difficulty urinating, bulging eyes, a bloated abdomen, and hardened knees. He couldn't eat or drink. No purgative or prescription helped. Li Gao finally saw this patient and told the man's doctors, “His disease has gotten worse. The Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor states that the bladder is the home of bodily fluids. The only way for fluid to pass is to dissolve the Qi. Purgatives made things worse, because they made it hard for the Qi to dissolve. Qixuanzi said, 'Yin can't be generated with yang. Yang can't be dissolved with yin.' Purgatives boost yang. So his yang is overwhelming, but his yin is missing. How can the Qi be dissolved?” Li Gao prescribed a combination of yin-natured herbs. The patient was cured after one dose.
Many of Li Gao's treatments were of similar efficiency. People of his age regarded him as a miracle worker. Many of his books were passed down to later generations.
According to the History of Ming, Ge Gansun was a native of Changzhou. His father Ge Yinglei was a well known and highly regarded doctor. Ge Gansun was tall and sturdy. He loved shooting and war strategies, but later decided to become an academic. He became an expert on the laws of yin and yang, the laws of nature, and astromancy.
After failing to score a ranking during several national exams, he followed his father's career path. He didn't treat patients often, but when he did, his treatments worked miraculously. His reputation as a doctor equaled that of Jin Hua and Zhu Danxi, two famous physicians of his era.
Ge Gansun was once asked to treat a girl from a wealthy family who couldn't move, talk, or eat, although she could open her eyes. Many doctors had already failed to cure her strange affliction. Ge Gansun asked her family to remove everything that had a fragrant smell from her room. He dug a pit in the floor and put her in it. After a while, the girl started to move and talk. Ge gave her a pill. The girl was able to get out of the pit the next day. Dr. Ge's diagnosis was that the girl's spleen had been damaged by the fragrances in her room.
According to the History of Ming, Zhou Hanqing was a physician and surgeon in Songyang who had superb acupuncture skills. Once, a woman with the surname Ma claimed to be 14 months pregnant but couldn't give birth. She looked very thin and dark. Dr. Zhou told her, “You're not pregnant. It's an intestinal parasite.” He treated her with acupuncture. Parasites that resembled golden fish were found in her excrement, and she was cured.
An elderly woman called Xu had severe epilepsy. Her hands and feet trembled. She would go outside naked, laughing and singing. Zhou Hanqing poked each of her fingers with a needle and squeezed out some blood. Her symptoms disappeared.
Another woman named Chen had a hard lump inside her abdomen. Dr. Zhou said she had an intestinal obstruction. He heated up a long needle and inserted it into the lump. Pus came out through the needle, and the woman was cured.
A young man called Huang couldn't straighten his back and had to walk with a cane. Other doctors had treated him for stroke symptoms. But Dr. Zhou said, “It's blood stasis.” He inserted a needle in the Kunlun acupuncture point on the patient's feet. The young man could walk without his cane right away.
Traditional Chinese medicine is profound, and it's part of the divine culture. It's very closely related to cultivation practice. The Chinese Communist Party has damaged traditional medicine through its campaigns to destroy traditional culture and thought, replacing it with communist ideology and atheism. But in the future, when the political situation in China is finally rectified and people's morals are restored, traditional culture and thought will again return to the Middle Kingdom.
(The End)