title: [Review of biographies of doctors in Chinese history].
abstract: After reviewing the biographies of doctors recorded in official history of China and books mentioned the biographies, it was seen that biographies of doctors in Chinese history are mainly composed of a resume of their life and medical achievements. Although a variety of other aspects, such as social, family and education background, personality, hobby, speciality, travel experience, medical ethics, comments and achievements outside medicine, which could make those figures more vivid, none of these has been described in detail. Biographies about doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) should be both scientific and popular, and of literary merit on the basis of validity. Biographers should know both doctors' medical achievements and the background of the era, combine the internal history and external history and find the relationship between them to make reasonable explanations.
authors.affiliation: China Institute for History of Medicine and Medical Literature, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Ping
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Zhu