[Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

In the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), a pestilence claimed the lives of thousands. According to records, from the first year of the Jian'an reign (196), two thirds of the population died of infectious diseases in just one decade, of which febrile diseases caused by cold accounted for 70 percent of the fatalities. 

Zhang Zhongjing was born in Nieyang of Nan county (now Rangdong town in Deng county, Henan province; also known as Nanyang city, Henan province) of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is said that he was once conferred an honorary title by the court and worked as the satrap of Changsha. Zhang Zhongjing had been fond of medical science since childhood, and learned medicine from Zhang Bozu in the same county when he was young. After many years of hard study and clinical practice, he enjoyed high prestige as an outstanding medical scientist in China.

Zhang Zhongjing diligently learned from the book Internal Canon of Medicine, and collected prescriptions extensively. As a result, he wrote the monumental work, Treatise on Febrile Diseases Caused by Cold and Miscellaneous Diseases. The principle of treatment according to syndrome differentiation established in the book is the basic rule of clinical medicine of China, and the soul of traditional Chinese medicine. 

The book also made a great contribution to the study of prescriptions: it created and recorded numerous types of effective recipes. Its principle of treatment according to the six channels has been highly regarded by doctors of all ages. It was the first monographic medicine work in China to take the principle of treatment according to syndrome differentiation from theory to practice, and is one of the most influential works in the history of Chinese medicine. Thus, it became a fundamental textbook for medical study in later generations, and remains highly valued by both medical students and clinical doctors.

There is a paragraph in the book that reads, "In terms of the high level, medicine is for curing nobles of their diseases; in terms of the lower level, it is used to save the poor from disaster; in terms of the middle level, it is used to keep us in good health." This shows the kind-heartedness of Zhongjing as a great doctor, so later generations have granted him the honorific title: "Saint in Medicine".