The Physician-Physician-Physician (Yi Yi Yi) is a medical treatise in three volumes by the Qing-dynasty physician Meng Jinshi (Yu Jin, also known as Yu Kui, courtesy names Xintian and Jintian, sobriquet Fengba). It opens with prefaces by others and the author's own account, was completed in the Jiyou year of the Xuantong reign (1909), and was once included in the San San Yi Shu collection as a letterpress edition. The three-character title means "the medicine that heals physicians": the author's focus is not on prescriptions or acupuncture but on the ills of the medical profession itself—he sets out to write a "prescription for healing physicians." The book unfolds in three tiers: Volume One, "The Court's Prescription for Physicians," discusses how the court and its institutions should treat medicine and physicians, arguing for raising physicians' status and for selection, examination, reward, and punishment, so that the way of medicine and the way of governance may be linked; Volume Two, "The World's Prescription for Physicians," criticizes social mores that prize wealth over life, indulge in luxury and excess, and shun doctors and medicine, noting that patients too must examine themselves; Volume Three, "The Physician's Prescription for Healing Himself," directly indicts doctors who are ignorant and incompetent, perfunctory, and profit-seeking, demanding that physicians turn inward and cultivate themselves. The writing compares medical principles to the art of governance, repeatedly asserting that "governing the people is like treating illness, and deploying medicine is like deploying troops" and that "a good minister is no different from a good physician, and a famous physician may serve as a famous general," while advocating that the way of medicine and the way of governance are one, and that everyone should know a little medicine and be able to treat themselves. The book also assesses the contemporary fashion of favoring Western medicine, acknowledging the strengths of anatomy, experiment, and pharmacy while insisting that the principle of qi transformation cannot be discarded. Its arguments are broad and its language impassioned, with many incisive insights; it stands apart among late-Qing medical treatises and still offers lessons today for thinking about medical ethics, doctor-patient relations, and medical education.
薄薄三卷，谈的却不是药方，而是「医生这一行该怎么治」。晚清医家孟今氏把医界弊病分成三层来诊治：制度如何待医、世人如何待医、医者如何自待。他敢把良医与良相比并，敢说「用药如用兵，名医即可为名将」，也敢直斥同行不学无术、以医牟利。这种把医学放进治道与世风里通盘审视的眼光，在古代医论中并不多见。 书中一些主张今天读来仍不陈旧：医生须先自治而后治人，医德不是附加项而是医术的一部分，患者重财轻命的风气同样需要「医治」。它同时是一份晚清思想史料——作者评议中西医学的取舍、设想变通医官与振兴医学之法，字里行间可见那个时代读书人的焦虑与抱负。篇幅短、文言浅近，中医爱好者、医学生、研究医德与医学史者都可在半日内通读，且常读常新。需说明的是，本书为医论性质，不载具体方药，也不是临床诊疗手册。
Meng Jinshi is an author about whom very little biographical information is publicly available: his real name, nationality, and dates of birth and death cannot be verified. All that is known is that he wrote one work, Yi Yi Yi (roughly "Medicine, Doctors, and the Healing Art"), which is commonly classified under medicine. The repeated character in the title suggests a reflective or critical approach—likely a discussion of medical practice, physicians, and medicine itself rather than a mere recipe book or clinical manual. Because this is the only known work and there are no prefaces, publication records, or author biographies to draw on, his writing style and intellectual background cannot be assessed in detail. What can be said is that the book belongs to the medical category, indicating content related to drugs, medical theory, or healing practice, and that its distinctive title gives it some recognizability among similar texts. For those studying obscure medical works or traditional medical literature, Meng Jinshi and Yi Yi Yi are worth noting as a lead.
