[Approaches to acquire medical prescriptions by the Song intellectuals].
In order to treat disease of oneself or other people, the Song intellectuals were eager to collect medical recipes or compiled medical formularies. Their main approaches in this regard included conversation with medical practitioners, mutual communication among themselves, and reading medical texts. Since the effectiveness of the recipes was emphasized through the first two approaches, the approach of reading medical texts appeared to be insignificant. Even if this last approach was selected, they tended to read those texts with evidences showing its effectiveness of the recipes carried in the texts.
China Institute for History of Medicine and Medical Literature, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
Hai-Peng
HP
Zhang