17 Bian Que

An Earliest Known Physician

Bian Que lived in early Spring & Autumn Period (around 700 BC), and he was the earliest known physician who won a laurel of “divine doctor”. People believed he excelled in an unusual ability to see inside of human’s body, something like using X-ray to diagnose diseases.

Once Bian Que visited Cai State (in Henan Province) and met its Emperor. He found the Emperor had had a fatal disease, but it was easy to cure for the moment, because the disease had just at “skin-deep”. When he told it to the Emperor, the Emperor just laughed it away, saying: “Don’t try to intimidate me. I’m strong.” Years later, Bian Que met the Emperor again and found the Emperor’s disease turned worse, but the Emperor once again paid no mind to Bian Que’s warning. At the last time, when Bian Que saw the Emperor, he rushed out of the palace, declaring the Emperor’s disease had “gone into the marrow”, and had no way to cure. The emperor had actually died soon.

Another story said: Once on his journey, Bian Que passed by Guo State (also in Henan), saw people mourn on the streets. Someone told him that the crowned prince of the state was just dead. He rushed to the site to see the prince, found out that the prince had actually fallen into a coma. He took out some needles from his bag, and acupunctured some parts of the body. Shortly afterward, the prince regained his consciousness and opened his eyes. The disease was finally cured.

Bian Que initialed to use “four steps” of diagnosis: looking (to patients’ tongue and appearance), inquiring (about symptoms), listening (to patients’ voice and breathing pattern), and taking (to feel patients’ pulse). This “four steps” of diagnosis had been used as a basic method passed down up-to-date to diagnose disease for all traditional Chinese doctors.