The ‘Divine Medical Skills’ That Modern Medicine Could Never Catch Up With

The stories of the “divine physicians” Bian Que and Hua Tuo are widely known, but are these legends true or false? If true, where did their miraculous medical skills come from?

A lineage of succession: The legitimate heirs to the Yellow Emperor’s ‘Medical Way’

According to the “Biography of Wang Bo” in the New Book of Tang, Wang Bo—the author of the Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng—studied secret medical techniques under his close friend Cao Yuan. The account traces the transmission of this medical tradition through the following lineage:

Qibo → Yellow Emperor → Lixiu Shi → Yi Yin → King Tang of Shang → nine generations of masters → Jiang Taigong → King Wen → nine generations of masters → Yi He → six generations of masters → Bian Que → nine generations of masters → Hua Tuo → six generations of masters → Huang Gong → Cao Yuan

In China’s divinely transmitted culture, the “Way of Medicine” originated from the Supreme Being in the celestial realm. It was passed down through the ancient sages and Qi Bo to the Yellow Emperor, thus establishing the 5,000-year-old legend of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Yellow Emperor passed the Way of Medicine on to Lei Gong, who later transmitted it to the royal houses of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and subsequently to Bian Que during the Warring States period and Hua Tuo at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Bian Que and Hua Tuo are revered as “Divine Physicians” precisely because they were the legitimate successors of the Yellow Emperor’s Way of Medicine. It was precisely because they inherited this divinely transmitted medical tradition that they were able to demonstrate astonishing “divine skills,” such as seeing through the human body and performing abdominal surgery.

The divine physician Bian Que: The art of penetrating the body and the miracle of heart transplantation

Bian Que, who lived during the Warring States period, was originally named Qin Yueren. Due to his exceptional medical skills, people of that time honored him with the title “Bian Que,” the name of a renowned physician from the Yellow Emperor’s era.

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According to Sima Qian’s “Records of the Grand Historian,” Bian Que was originally just the manager of an inn. A mysterious figure named Chang Sang Jun stayed there for over ten years. Recognizing Bian Que’s extraordinary nature, he decided to pass on his secret arts to him. Chang Sang Jun gave him a packet of medicine and a medical text, instructing him to take them with the morning dew that had not yet fallen to the ground (“upper pond water”), and told him that a miracle would occur thirty days later. He then vanished into thin air. The *Records of the Grand Historian* therefore speculates that Chang Sang Jun was likely no ordinary person. After Bian Que followed these instructions, he indeed acquired the “Art of Seeing Through Walls,” which allowed him to see through walls and peer into the human body, and he used this ability to diagnose patients.

The “Liezi: Tang Wen” further records the extraordinary story of Bian Que performing a “heart transplant” for Gong Hu and Qi Ying: Bian Que first gave the two men a wine laced with anesthetic, causing them to sleep deeply for three days. He then opened their chests, swapped their hearts, and administered a miraculous medicine. Upon waking, both men were fully recovered and took their leave to return home. However, after the successful heart swap, they ended up at the wrong houses: Gong Hu returned to Qi Ying’s home, and Qi Ying returned to Gong Hu’s home. This led to a dispute between the two families, which was brought before the authorities. The conflict was finally resolved only after Bian Que explained the circumstances.

The divine physician Hua Tuo: Divine insight and the forerunner of surgery

Hua Tuo, who lived during the late Eastern Han Dynasty, also possessed the ability to see through the human body, and later generations referred to him as “Divine Eye.” According to the “Records of the Three Kingdoms” and the “Book of the Later Han,” he was indifferent to fame and fortune, well-versed in health preservation, and still looked as youthful as a young man even after turning 100. Legend has it that he once visited Mount Gongyi, where he met a mysterious sage who imparted to him the secrets of medical arts.

When diagnosing patients, Hua Tuo could directly visualize tumors inside their bodies. He would first have the patient ingest “Ma Fei San” to induce anesthesia. Once the patient lost consciousness, he would perform an abdominal incision to remove the tumor, then suture the wound and apply a miraculous ointment to complete the treatment. Additionally, stories from “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” such as Hua Tuo “scraping the bone to remove poison” for Guan Yu and diagnosing a tumor in Cao Cao’s brain, are widely known. Cao Cao frequently suffered from headaches. Hua Tuo diagnosed a tumor in his brain and proposed performing a craniotomy to remove it. Suspecting that Hua Tuo intended to harm him, Cao Cao had him imprisoned until his death. Ultimately, Cao Cao himself died from a severe headache.

The essence of Daoist medicine: ‘Cultivating both nature and life’ and oral transmission

Where exactly did these “divine skills” originate? The secret lies in “cultivation.” Ancient Daoist cultivation emphasized “the dual cultivation of nature and life”, that is, cultivating the mind and valuing virtue while also refining qi and nurturing health. The medical skills of ancient divine physicians were “secretly transmitted” and “passed down to a single disciple” Masters were extremely selective in choosing apprentices, and only those of the highest moral character could receive the true teachings, while the rest could only grasp the surface. It was precisely through this cultivation that ancient divine physicians were able to develop the extraordinary ability to see through the human body.

Just as in the “Codex of Traditional Chinese Medicine,” the “Huangdi Neijing” (The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), the written text records only the theoretical aspects of medicine. The truly subtle keys to cultivation, as exemplified by the Yellow Emperor’s admonition to Lei Gong: “Be cautious, be very cautious. I speak these words to you,” were entirely passed down to disciples through the master’s “oral transmission and heart-to-heart instruction,” making it difficult for outsiders to fathom their mysteries. This is also why the “Huangdi Neijing” was not only difficult for ancient people to understand but is even more difficult for modern people to grasp.

Medical ethics as the foundation: Great compassion for healing and saving lives

Apart from Bian Que and Hua Tuo, renowned physicians throughout history, such as Sun Simiao of the Tang Dynasty and Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, all attained noble medical ethics through cultivation. In their medical practice, they naturally demonstrated a detachment from fame and fortune, along with a heart dedicated to healing and saving lives.