Fictional Accounts
In the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Hua Tuo supposedly healed the Shu Han general, Guan Yu, who had been struck with a poisoned arrow during his Battle of Fancheng. Hua Tuo offered to anesthetize Guan Yu, but he simply laughed that he was not afraid of pain. Hua Tuo used a knife to cut the flesh from Guan Yu's arm and scrape the poison from the bone, and the sounds chilled all those who heard them. During this excruciating treatment, Guan Yu continued to play the board game weiqi with Ma Liang, without flinching from pain. When later asked by Ma Liang, Guan Yu said that he feigned being unhurt to keep the morale of the army high. After Hua Tuo's successful operation, Guan Yu allegedly rewarded him with a sumptuous banquet, and offered a present of 100 ounces of gold, but he refused, saying that a doctor's duty was curing patients, not making profits. Despite the historical fact that Hua Tuo died in 208, a decade before Guan Yu fought the 219 Battle of Fancheng, this storied operation is a popular artistic theme.
Hua Tuo was later called upon to cure a chronic excruciating pain in Cao Cao's head, which turned out to be a brain tumor. Hua Tuo told Cao Cao that in order to remove the tumor, it would be necessary to open up his skull. However, Cao Cao suspected the doctor intended murder, and ordered that Hua Tuo be jailed and executed. This was because Ji Ben, a former royal surgeon, had participated in Dong Cheng's assassination plot on Cao Cao (this assassination attempt by Ji Ben however did historically happen).
The novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms has it that Hua Tuo gave his Qing Nang Shu, which recorded techniques for treating patients, to a prison official before his execution in order that his medical profession would survive. The wife of the official burned the book to avoid implication. Alarmed, the official immediately seized the burning papers from her, but the only parts he obtained were those dealing with how to emasculate hen and ducks and the other medical methods of Hua Tuo were lost forever.
Read more about this topic: Hua Tuo
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