李杲

Li Gao is a highly important physician in the history of traditional Chinese medicine. However, public information about his birth and death dates, native place, and educational background is limited, so this page introduces him only through his surviving works. The library holds nine of his works, including Pi Wei Lun (Treatise on the Spleen and Stomach), Lan Shi Mi Cang (Secret Book of the Orchid Chamber), Nei Wai Shang Bian Huo Lun (Treatise on Distinguishing Internal and External Damage), Yi Xue Fa Ming (Clarifying Medicine), and Mai Jue Zhi Zhang Bing Shi Tu Shuo (Illustrated Treatise on Pulse Diagnosis and Patterns of Illness), most of which fall under health, medicine, and classic works. These writings address the rising and falling of spleen and stomach qi, the differentiation of internal damage from external contraction, and the pulse methods of the zang-fu organs. Their arguments are clearly organized and their formulas closely matched to patterns, making them useful for clinical reference as well as for introductory and advanced study of traditional Chinese medical theory. Among them, Pi Wei Lun and Nei Wai Shang Bian Huo Lun circulated especially widely and have had a lasting influence on later physicians' attention to the spleen and stomach and their distinction between internal damage and external contraction. Readers who wish to understand traditional Chinese medicine's approach to pattern differentiation and formula organization may begin with his representative works and then consult the other titles alongside them.