华佗 Huà Tuó (circa 145-208 AD)—中国历史人物英文介绍

华佗HuàTuó(circa 145-208 AD)
A Pioneering Chinese Surgeon
Hua Tuo was a famous physician in the later years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD). He is widely known as the first doctor in traditionalChinese medicine to invent some anesthetic herbal formulas and the first surgeon in the country to conduct abdominal operations.
Hua also created a set of therapeutic qigong
exercises called Wuqinxi or Five-Animal Frolics, which imitate the movement of tiger, deer, bear, ape andbird, and are still popular today.
As a result, there are numerous temples across the country where people continue to worship this legendary doctor, and his name and image adorn alltypes of medical and health products.
Hua was born in today's Bo County in eastern China's Anhui Province. His father died when Hua was only seven. He lived afterward with his mother inabject poverty. In order to survive and enable her son to have a career, the mother sent young Hua to study medicine from a folk doctor surnamedCai.
The master first asked the boy to learn filling the prescriptions with other elder apprentices. But, the boy was frequently bullied by his fellowapprentices because of his young age. He was even denied the use of Chinese scales, so making his job almost impossible.
However, through diligent practice, the boy later learned to accurately measure the weight of herbal and other pharmaceutical ingredients using onlyhis hands.
The master was very much impressed by the boy's diligence and ingenuity, so he decided to teach him all the skills he knew.
Soon, Hua became an expert in fields such as acupuncture, physiotherapy, gynecology, pediatrics and surgery. Particularly, he later mastered expertisein surgery and anesthesia. He even invented mafeisan, an anesthetic herbal powder.
Before Hua's time, Chinese doctors were helpless when treating patients with internal illness that could not be reached by acupuncture needles orherbal medicines. Using his innovative anesthetic powder, Hua could make an incision on a patient's abdomen and remove the bad tissues or diseasedparts of organs. Then, he would stitch up the
abdomen and apply some ointment to it. In four to five days, the pain would go and within a month, thepatient would fully recover.
Hua later appeared in many legendary stories. One of them is about how Hua did surgery on Guan Yu, a famous general of the Kingdom of Shu,without using any anesthesia. According to the story, after Guan's right arm was wounded in a battle by a poisonous arrow, he invited Hua to help treat the wound. First, Huawanted the general to take his anesthetic. The general laughed and said that it was not necessary since he was not afraid of pain.
So, without applying any anesthetic, Hua used a scalpel to cut off the poisoned flesh from Guan's arm and then scraped the
affected bones while thegeneral was calmly playing chess. Listening to the sound of bone scratching, the onlookers' faces turned pale but the general never uttered a singlesound of discomfort throughout the operation.
This story extols both the doctor's exceptional skill and the rare bravery of the general.。