Liu Bingfan

This volume in the series One Hundred Distinguished Clinical Practitioners of Chinese Medicine over a Century presents the Hunan physician Liu Bingfan. Liu Bingfan (1910–2000) was born in Miluo, Hunan, and was a researcher at the Hunan Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, one of the "Five Elders of Hunan" in Chinese medicine, and a recipient of Hunan Province's first Bethune Medal. He worked in Chinese medicine research, teaching, and clinical practice for more than seventy years, originated the holistic treatment principle that "treating disease must begin with treating the person, and treating the person must above all attend to the spleen and stomach," and formed a prescription system integrating disease, pattern, and spleen-stomach. The book is divided into four parts: a brief biography of the physician, treatment by disease, miscellaneous clinical notes, and a chronological biography. The biography recounts his path from apprentice bamboo craftsman to renowned physician. Treatment by Disease is the core of the book, covering emergencies, coronary heart disease, mental illness, cough and asthma, gastrointestinal disease, diabetes, acute and chronic nephritis, urinary stones, rheumatic joint pain, geriatric disease, consumptive disease, advanced schistosomiasis, and tumors, analyzing pattern differentiation and prescribing principles through specific case records. Miscellaneous Clinical Notes collects his reflections on classics such as the Inner Canon, Treatise on Cold Damage, Zhongzang Canon, and Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand in Gold, as well as clinical insights into collateral-unblocking methods, the pairing of mutually counteracting and mutually reinforcing herbs, and the use of White Tiger decoction variants. A chronological biography at the end outlines his academic career. The book draws on clinical practice, is clearly organized and fluently written, and embodies Liu's academic characteristics of taking the spleen and stomach as the root and combining internal and external treatment; it is important reading for the study of the Hunan spleen-stomach school and the differentiation and treatment of difficult internal diseases.