page_title: Hua Tuo
section_title: Historical accounts
hierarchical_section_title: Hua Tuo / Historical accounts
caption_attribution_description: Woodcut, incorporated into a handwritten copy of Yuanmen maijue neizhao tu (Internal Visualisation Charts from the 'Primordial Portal' Secrets of the Pulse), attributed to Hua Tuo, a renowned physician of the third century BCE. This chart shows the internal distribution of various viscera and organs from the back view. They include the stomach cavity, the lung, the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the &#91;left&#93; kidney, the mingmen (right kidney considered as 'Portal of Life'), the small and large intestine, etc. Wellcome Images Keywords: Viscera; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Neijing; Internal visualisation
context_page_description: Hua Tuo, courtesy name Yuanhua, was a Chinese physician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty. The historical texts Records of the Three Kingdoms and Book of the Later Han record Hua Tuo as the first person in China to use anaesthesia during surgery. He used a general anaesthetic combining wine with a herbal concoction called mafeisan. Besides being respected for his expertise in surgery and anaesthesia, Hua Tuo was famous for his abilities in acupuncture, moxibustion, herbal medicine and medical Daoyin exercises. He developed the Wuqinxi from studying movements of the tiger, deer, bear, ape and crane.
context_section_description: The oldest extant biographies of Hua Tuo are found in the official Chinese histories for the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) and Three Kingdoms period (220-280) of China. The third-century historical text Records of Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi) and fifth-century historical text Book of the Later Han (Houhanshu) record that Hua Tuo was from Qiao County (譙縣), Pei Commandery (沛郡), which is in present-day Bozhou, Anhui, and that he studied Chinese classics throughout Xu Province (covering parts of present-day Jiangsu and Shandong provinces). He refused employment offers from high-ranking officials (e.g. Chen Gui) and chose to practise medicine.
  The dates of Hua Tuo's life are uncertain. Estimations range from 110 to 207, and from 190 to 265 conclude that the "best estimate" is circa 145-208. Hua Tuo was an older contemporary of the physician Zhang Zhongjing (150-219).
  The name Hua Tuo combines the Chinese surname Hua (華, literally "magnificent; China") with the uncommon Chinese given name Tuo (佗 literally "hunchback" or 陀 literally "steep hill"). He was also known as Hua Fu (尃; literally "apply [powder/ointment/etc.]"), and his courtesy name was Yuanhua (元化; literally "primal transformation").
  Some scholars believe that he learned Ayurveda medical techniques from early Buddhist missionaries in China. Victor H. Mair describes him as "many hundreds of years ahead of his time in medical knowledge and practice", and suggests his name Hua Tuo, which was roughly pronounced ghwa-thā in Old Chinese, could derive from the Sanskrit term agada "medicine; toxicology". Several stories in Hua Tuo's biography "have a suspiciously Ayurvedic character to them" and he was active "in the areas where the first Buddhist communities were established in China".
  
  Hua Tuo's biography in the Sanguozhi describes him as resembling a Daoist xian (仙; "immortal") and details his medical techniques. 
  [Hua Tuo] 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 Tuo] 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 Tuo] would tell the patient how to take the medicine and then would go away, after which the patient's condition would promptly improve.
  If [Hua Tuo] employed moxibustion, he would only burn punk in one or two places and in each place he only made seven or eight separate cauterisations, 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 instated 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 Tuo] would recognise that it was necessary to operate. In such cases, he would have his patients drink a solution of morphean powder 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. 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.
  Hua Tuo's biography in the Houhanshu explains this mafeisan "numbing boiling powder" decoction was dissolved in jiu (酒; literally "alcohol
caption: Yuanmen Maijue Neizhao Tu (元門脈訣內照圖), a chart of the internal viscera and organs. Attributed to Hua Tuo. Imprint of the Qing dynasty.
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