Ge Hong

Ge Hong a scholar, alchemist and physician of the Jin dynasty (283-343) who combined an official career with the pursuit of immortality and the practice of medicine, and whose handbook of emergency remedies preserved a wealth of practical medical knowledge for later ages.

Life and Career

Ge Hong, whose courtesy name was Zhichuan and who called himself the Master Who Embraces Simplicity, was born in 283 in Jurong, in what is now Jiangsu province, into a family of the southern gentry of the Jin dynasty. He received a classical education and held military and civil offices, but his deepest interests lay in scholarship, in the Daoist pursuit of immortality and in medicine. His life spanned a period of political division and warfare, and he was at one time involved in the campaigns that followed the troubles of his age.

He was a student of Daoist texts and of the techniques of self-cultivation, including meditation, breath control, diet and the compounding of drugs, and he sought throughout his life the methods by which the body might be preserved and life prolonged. He served in official posts and even accepted a military appointment, but he repeatedly withdrew from public life in order to pursue his studies and to travel in search of teachers and of rare substances.

Late in life he settled, by tradition, in the mountains of the south, at Mount Luofu in what is now Guangdong province, where he is said to have devoted himself to the alchemical search for the elixir of immortality. The story of his death, like that of many Daoist adepts, is clouded with legend; some accounts hold that he attained the state of the immortal and left no corpse behind. He is remembered as one of the great polymaths of the early medieval period.

Alchemy and the Pursuit of Immortality

Ge Hong is one of the central figures in the history of Chinese alchemy. His major work, the Baopuzi or Master Who Embraces Simplicity, sets out in its inner chapters a detailed account of the theory and practice of the alchemical arts, including the preparation of elixirs from minerals, metals and herbs. He believed that the mortal body could be transformed and preserved by the correct use of drugs and that immortality was attainable by those who followed the proper methods.

He described the laboratory techniques of his time, the furnaces and vessels used in the compounding of cinnabar, mercury, gold and other substances, and the cycles of heating and sublimation by which the alchemists sought to produce the elixir. His accounts are among the most important sources for the early history of chemistry in China, and they record practical observations that would later contribute to the understanding of many substances and reactions.

His alchemical interests were inseparable from his medical ones, for he held that the prolongation of life and the cure of disease were parts of a single enterprise. The drugs and preparations that he studied were valued both for their supposed power to confer longevity and for their effects upon the sick, and the boundary between medicine and alchemy in his work is often difficult to draw. This union of the two pursuits was characteristic of the age.

The Handbook of Emergency Remedies

Ge Hong is perhaps most celebrated in the history of medicine for a work known as the Prescriptions for Emergencies, the Zhou Hou Bei Ji Fang, a practical handbook of remedies for acute and sudden illness. It was designed for use by ordinary people and by physicians who might not have access to elaborate equipment, and it gathered together treatments for a wide range of emergencies, from wounds and bites to colic, poisoning and the complications of childbirth.

The handbook is especially noted for its inclusion of a treatment against malaria, which in later ages was associated with the drug qinghao, derived from the sweet wormwood plant. The instructions for preparing a remedy from this herb, though they were not fully understood at the time, describe a method of extraction that has been shown to be effective, and they are cited as one of the earliest records of a treatment for the disease. This has given the work a lasting place in the history of pharmacology.

The book also contains early descriptions of smallpox-like disease, of the treatment of dog and snake bites, of the management of wounds and fractures, and of many other practical matters. Its plain, usable style and its emphasis on remedies that could be prepared from common materials made it a favourite manual for a thousand years, and it was repeatedly expanded and republished by later editors.

Medical and Scientific Ideas

Ge Hong held a rational and observational attitude toward disease, urging physicians to determine the cause of an illness and to treat it accordingly rather than to rely on superstition. At the same time he accepted much of the worldview of his time, including the influence of demons and spirits in certain conditions, and he wrote of both natural and supernatural causes. His work thus provides a picture of the balance of ideas in early medieval medicine, and it shows how a thoughtful physician of the period could combine careful reasoning with inherited beliefs.

He was an advocate of the use of simple and readily available remedies and of self-treatment, and he believed that the preservation of health required discipline in diet, in the moderation of the passions and in the cultivation of the body. He criticised those who sought long life through magical means while neglecting the ordinary care of their health, and he insisted that the pursuit of learning and the practice of virtue were essential to true well-being. He also warned against the indiscriminate use of potent drugs and urged care in the compounding of medicines.

His thought drew upon the classical medical texts, upon the Daoist canon and upon the traditions of the popular healers, and he wove these strands into a distinctive philosophy of health and longevity. His combination of scepticism about empty claims with a belief in the possibility of extraordinary human achievement gave his writing a tone that later readers found both sober and inspiring, and it helped to preserve a spirit of inquiry that valued evidence while remaining open to the mysteries of life and death.

Influence and Legacy

Ge Hong's influence was felt in several fields at once. As an alchemist he shaped the development of Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical knowledge; as a physician he provided a practical handbook that served the sick for centuries; and as a thinker he left a record of Daoist ideas about the body, health and immortality. His book was read by scholars, by physicians and by seekers of long life alike.

His medical work was preserved and expanded by later generations, and many of the remedies that he recorded passed into the mainstream of Chinese pharmacy. The account of the malaria treatment that his book contains has become especially famous, and it is often cited when the achievements of early Chinese medicine are discussed. His alchemical writings remained a foundation of the tradition that eventually gave way to modern chemistry.

He died in about 343, in the mountains of the south that he had made his home. He is remembered as a man who united the scholar, the physician and the seeker of immortality, and whose wide-ranging curiosity produced works that illuminate both the medicine and the science of his age. His name stands at the meeting point of Chinese alchemy, pharmacy and clinical practice, and his handbook of emergency remedies remained a trusted companion to the sick and to those who cared for them.

See also

• Chinese alchemy
• Baopuzi
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Jin dynasty