This book discusses the medical knowledge system in the pre-Qin period and its specific development during the Han Dynasty, drawing on related accounts in non-medical literature as background evidence and analyzing in detail the texts of the current edition of Huangdi’s Internal Classic (including two independent works Plain Questions and Miraculous Pivot) and ancient medical texts written on bamboo and silk. It even includes detailed evidence that Bian Que’s medical theory was incorporated in the current version of Huangdi’s Internal Classic. 

This book uses textual research on the current edition of Huangdi’s Internal Classic as its point of departure, instead of the eponymous work recoded in the Yiwenzhi of the Book of Han. Therefore, it departs from the previous definition and throws off the shackling assumption that the time of the formation of Huangdi’s Internal Classic cannot be later than that of the Seven Summaries, a book completed in the late Western Han. Beginning with the study (1984) of dosage form originating from the Qin and Han Dynasties, it takes nearly 30 years to complete the “reconstruction” of the development of medicine in the Qin and Han Dynasties on the basis of many elaborate case studies. In turn, this book clarifies that there was no advanced medical development in the pre-Qin period, and that medicine became more innovative as the culture of the Han Dynasty became prosperous. Many developments and changes in medical theory in the Eastern Han Dynasty are closer to the traditional Chinese medicine we know today. Given its unique scope, this book appeals to a broad range of researchers and general readers.

Yuqun Liao is a research fellow (Level 2) of Natural Science History with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former director of the Academy’s Institute of Natural Science History. He is a prominent expert in medical history, recognized both in China and abroad. He has been engaged in the study of Chinese medical history, as well as Japanese and Indian medical history, for many years, and has published more than ten academic books. History of Chinese Science and Technology—Medicine (Science Press, 1998) has since been translated into Korean, while Traditional Chinese Medicine (Wuzhou Communication Publishing House, 2006) has been translated into English, Japanese, French, and Arabic.