Hua Tuo 华佗

Names

Identity

Historicity

Historical

Identification

Named

Sex

Male

• Sex: male
  Strongly inferred · houhanshu:093:s0133

Roles

• Healer
• Pharmacist
• Physician
• Scholar
• Teacher

Family

• Parent of Child of Hua Tuo (华佗小兒)
  Kinship Term: father / 翁 · Parentage: biological · Subject Role: father · Object Role: child
  Kinship Term: father / 翁 · Parentage: biological · Subject Role: child · Object Role: father
• Spouse of Wife of Hua Tuo (华佗妻)
  Kinship Term: wife / 妻 · Union Category: marriage · Subject Role: husband · Object Role: wife
  Kinship Term: wife / 妻 · Union Category: marriage · Subject Role: wife · Object Role: husband

Career and standing

• Label: summons to the staff of the Grand Commandant / 太尉辟 · Action: declined · By Person Id: Huang Wan (黄琬) · Negated: true
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0136
• Action: arrested and interrogated · Authority Person Id: Cao Cao (曹操) · Description: arrested after Cao Cao's investigation showed his wife's illness was feigned; under examination he confessed · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0174

Places and affiliations

• Place: Qiao, principality of Pei / 沛国谯 · Relation: native-of
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0133

Learning and skills

• Action: travelled and studied · Place: the land of Xu / 徐土 · Subjects: several classics / 数经
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0134
• Credential: Filial and Incorrupt / 孝廉 · Action: nominated · By Person Id: Chen Gui (陈珪) · Outcome: declined · Negated: true
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0136
• Skill: formulary and drugs / 方药 · Level: expert · Note: his prescriptions used no more than a few ingredients, he knew weights to the fen and zhu without a scale, and he needled no more than a few points
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0137
• Skill: the arts of nurturing life / 养性之术 · Level: expert
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0135
• Skill: surgery under anaesthesia with hemp-boil powder / 麻沸散、刳破腹背 · Level: renowned · Note: opened the abdomen or back, excised accumulations, rinsed the gut, sewed the wound and applied a numinous salve; the wound healed in four or five days and the body was whole within a month
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0138, houhanshu:093:s0139

Works and attributed material

• Work: a scroll of medical writing / 一卷书 · Relation: author · Action: burned after the jailor refused it
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0177, houhanshu:093:s0178
• Work: lacquer-leaf and green-sticky powder / 漆叶青黏散 · Relation: transmitter · Other Person Id: Fan A (樊阿) · Note: one dou of powdered lacquer leaves to fourteen liang of green-sticky as the standard proportion
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0195
• Work: lacquer-leaf and green-sticky powder / 漆叶青黏散 · Relation: originator · Note: the chapter appends a note on where the two ingredients are obtained: lacquer trees grow everywhere, while green-sticky grows in the country between Feng, Pei, Pengcheng and Zhaoge
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0198, houhanshu:093:s0199
• Work: the Play of the Five Beasts / 五禽之戏 · Relation: originator
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0189
• Kind: diagnosis · Role: speaker · Other Person Id: General Li (李将军) · Status: quoted · Summary: insisted against General Li's denial that the pulse showed the fetus had not departed, that there had been two fetuses, and that the dead one had dried fast to the mother's spine · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0159, houhanshu:093:s0161, houhanshu:093:s0164, houhanshu:093:s0165, houhanshu:093:s0166, houhanshu:093:s0169
• Kind: discourse · Role: speaker · Other Person Id: Wu Pu (吴普) · Status: quoted · Summary: taught Wu Pu that the body wants movement but not to exhaustion, and expounded the Play of the Five Beasts — tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird — as a substitute for daoyin exercises · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0186, houhanshu:093:s0187, houhanshu:093:s0188, houhanshu:093:s0189, houhanshu:093:s0190, houhanshu:093:s0191
• Kind: prognosis · Role: speaker · Other Person Id: Chen Deng (陈登) · Status: quoted · Summary: warned Chen Deng that the disease would flare again after three cycles and that only a skilled physician could then save him · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0155
• Kind: prognosis · Role: speaker · Status: quoted · Summary: told a patient that the roots of his disease were deep and required cutting open the belly, but that his lifespan would not exceed ten years in any case and the disease could not kill him first · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0148, houhanshu:093:s0149
• Kind: claim · Role: speaker · Status: paraphrased · Summary: said that taken over a long time the powder removes the three worms, benefits the five viscera, lightens the body and keeps the hair from turning white
  Strongly inferred · houhanshu:093:s0196

Events and relationships

• Kind: personal · Role: petitioner · Other Person Id: Cao Cao (曹操) · Action: asked Cao Cao for leave to go home and fetch formulas, then used his wife's illness as a pretext and repeatedly missed the deadline for returning · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0172, houhanshu:093:s0173
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Other Person Id: Li Cheng (李成) · Action: diagnosed Li Cheng's cough as an intestinal abscess, gave two cash-measures of powder and warned that the illness would return in eighteen years and could not be cured without the same drug · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0179, houhanshu:093:s0180, houhanshu:093:s0181
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Other Person Id: Wife of General Li (李将军妻) · Action: diagnosed twin fetuses in General Li's wife, one dead and dried to the spine, needled her and gave a decoction, then had someone extract the dead fetus · Outcome: a blackened but recognizable dead fetus was drawn out · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0158, houhanshu:093:s0159, houhanshu:093:s0161, houhanshu:093:s0163, houhanshu:093:s0164, houhanshu:093:s0165, houhanshu:093:s0166, houhanshu:093:s0167, houhanshu:093:s0169, houhanshu:093:s0170
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Action: judged that a long-ill grand administrator would recover only through violent rage, took his gifts without treating him, then left a letter of abuse · Outcome: the grand administrator raged, sent men to kill him, failed to catch him, vomited several sheng of black blood and recovered · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0144, houhanshu:093:s0145, houhanshu:093:s0146, houhanshu:093:s0147
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Other Person Id: Cao Cao (曹操) · Action: needled Cao Cao for his chronic headaches with dizziness · Outcome: cured as soon as the hand moved · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0157
• Kind: personal · Role: condemned prisoner · Other Person Id: Jailor Who Refused Hua Tuo's Book (狱吏) · Action: on the point of death offered a scroll of writing to the jailor, saying it could keep people alive; when the clerk feared the law and refused, he burned it · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0177, houhanshu:093:s0178
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Action: on the road told a man choking with a blocked throat to drink three sheng of a cake-seller's sour duckweed pickle · Outcome: the man vomited a snake, hung it on his cart and came to Hua Tuo's gate, where he saw a dozen more snakes hanging on the north wall · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0140, houhanshu:093:s0141, houhanshu:093:s0143
• Kind: medical · Role: surgeon · Action: operated on a patient who could not bear the pain and insisted on removal · Outcome: the patient recovered at once and died ten years later as predicted · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0150, houhanshu:093:s0151
• Kind: medical · Role: physician · Other Person Id: Chen Deng (陈登) · Action: took Chen Deng's pulse, diagnosed worms in the stomach forming an internal abscess from rank food, and gave two sheng of decoction · Outcome: Chen Deng vomited three sheng of red-headed worms and the suffering ceased · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 华佗行医之时（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 150 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0152, houhanshu:093:s0153, houhanshu:093:s0154
• Relation: retainer-of · Person Id: Cao Cao (曹操) · Description: summoned by Cao Cao and constantly kept at his side · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 曹操闻而召佗（无纪年） · Western Interval: Start: AD 196 · End: AD 220
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0157
• Relation: teacher-of · Person Id: Fan A (樊阿) · Description: Fan A of Pengcheng studied under him
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0184
• Relation: teacher-of · Person Id: Wu Pu (吴普) · Description: Wu Pu of Guangling studied under him
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0184

Assessments and attributes

• Assessment: his supreme skills were all of this sort · Source Text: 佗之绝技，皆此类也 · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0171
• Assessment: taken by his contemporaries for an immortal (仙) · Provenance: Mode: contemporary-opinion
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0135
• Kind: character · Statement: difficult in personality and hard to please, ashamed to make a career of being seen as a physician · Source Text: 为人性恶，难得意，且耻以医见业
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0172
• Kind: physical-description · Statement: nearly a hundred years old yet still of vigorous countenance · Source Text: 年且百岁而犹有壮容
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0135

Source notes

• Kind: contemporaries · Statement: Leng Shouguang, Tang Yu and Lu Nüsheng were all his contemporaries · Source Text: 皆与华佗同时
  Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0201