Reflections on Reading Notes from Studying under Zhao Bingnan

The venerable Zhao Bingnan was a famous TCM dermatological surgeon in China. He was of the Hui ethnic group, born in 1899. Zhao Bingnan's family was poor; after attending a village school on and off for six years, he could not continue his education because of poverty, so he became an apprentice at a pharmacy and a medical clinic.

As a child Zhao Bingnan suffered from smallpox, dysentery and malaria, and was lucky to be cured by a rural village healer, a woman called Aunt Wang Er, from his hometown; this gave him a special interest in Chinese medicine. During his apprenticeship Zhao Bingnan studied hard. In 1920, when the Beiyang government held TCM examinations, Zhao Bingnan obtained a "medical practitioner's" license; thereafter he practiced medicine for a long time and gradually became an outstanding clinical master.

Although the elderly Zhao Bingnan had little formal schooling, his medical skill was superb. He treated famous figures including Puyi, Wu Peifu, Zhu De and Mei Lanfang, and was received several times by national leaders such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Fu Lianzhang, the Minister of Health, particularly admired his medical skill. After liberation, when the first TCM hospital in Beijing was established, old Zhao became one of the first TCM physicians to join the hospital, relieving the suffering of many patients.

Because of his superb skill and outstanding contributions, Zhao successively served as vice president of the Beijing Hospital of TCM and director of its Dermatological Surgery Department, director of the Beijing Institute of TCM, and professor in the TCM Department of Beijing Second Medical College. He was elected a committee member of the Surgery and Dermatology branches of the Chinese Medical Association, vice president of the China Association of Chinese Medicine, and chairman of the Beijing Association of Chinese Medicine. He also served as a TCM consultant to the Institute of Dermatology and Venereology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing Hospital and the Plastic Surgery Hospital. In addition, he was repeatedly elected a people's congress representative and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The venerable Zhao Bingnan did not have much education or literary polish; reading his own account of his life, the language is plain and unadorned, and his literary grounding was indeed not strong. It was no easy thing for such an old-style TCM apprentice to become a clinical master and the academic leader of TCM dermatological surgery. Zhao began working as an apprentice in pharmacies and clinics at the age of fourteen, studying and working up to twenty hours a day—extremely hard—but, born into poverty, he persevered.

He not only studied the classics of TCM external medicine but also learned to process medicinal materials and make TCM plasters; even after becoming a departmental leader, he still made plasters with his own hands. After becoming head of the Dermatology Research Institute, he was never too proud to ask questions. If he saw in a journal that a particular physician had an original approach, he went personally to learn from him, discussed with him, and invited him to give lectures at the institute. When colleagues and friends told him that a certain doctor had some unique skill, he would also visit in person, sincerely learning from and exchanging with them.

It is clear from this that to acquire first-rate medical skill, formal credentials are not the key; a heart eager to learn, improve and dig deep matters more. As a child Zhao Bingnan nearly died three times from serious illnesses. The healer who treated him, Aunt Wang Er, was even illiterate, yet she had accumulated much experience in treating disease; the smallpox, intermittent dysentery (lixi) and malaria Zhao suffered were all intractable illnesses at the time, and Aunt Wang Er nevertheless cured them. In particular, when Zhao Bingnan was seven he had malaria, alternating chills and fever for a whole year, and was at death's door. His mother begged Aunt Wang Er to treat him as a last resort; Aunt Wang Er used "xinshi" (note: arsenolite, the ore from which arsenic is refined) to treat him. The side effects were severe, but he escaped death and was given his life back.

From Zhao Bingnan's own experience we can see how greatly medicine has advanced over these years. The smallpox that nearly killed Zhao has been eradicated by humanity through vaccination; Professor Tu Youyou's artemisinin, extracted from the Chinese herb Artemisia annua, can now cure malaria 100% safely, far safer than arsenic; and the intermittent dysentery caused by Shigella can now be cured safely with antibiotics. The tremendous progress of modern medicine and health is the greatest benefit people of our age have gained from scientific advance. At the same time, we can see that the various traditional healing methods long used among the Chinese folk do indeed have clinical value and are well worth mining; in particular, the experience of traditional medicine in treating difficult, complicated conditions that modern medicine cannot solve deserves serious study.

Professor Zhao Bingnan not only tirelessly studied the medical skills of predecessors but also constantly innovated, creating many treatment methods and formulas and making many attempts to improve traditional TCM therapy. His interpretation of eczema and the ointments and new fumigation therapy he developed all have innovative value.

I heard of Zhao Bingnan's actual clinical results from a retired elderly physician at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital. This physician came to me for treatment of lymphoma and spent a long time exchanging TCM and Western medical views with me. She had graduated early from the Medical School of Peking University, studying Western clinical medicine, and was a famous detoxification specialist in China. In middle age she became interested in Chinese medicine and used the Black Ju Ointment (heiju gao) developed by Zhao Bingnan to cure several patients' severe diabetic foot, sparing them the amputation they would otherwise have faced. She therefore greatly admired old Zhao's medical skill and encouraged me to study his works seriously.

I have also read the Zhao Bingnan Clinical Experience Collection, but because my own focus was not dermatological surgery, I did not study it in depth. Recently, by chance, I read Notes from Studying under Zhao Bingnan by Professor Xu Yihou; I was deeply impressed by old Zhao's scholarly attitude and encouraged by the way an older generation learned medicine. The way of medicine is truly difficult, but if one can be single-minded, not afraid of difficulty and not afraid of hardship, one can still acquire a specialty. The essence of learning medicine lies in persistent study and clinical practice; as long as one does not aim too high, and persists in accumulating deeply before releasing, effort will not betray a willing heart.