ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3, we saw how during the eleventh century a rise in the frequency of epidemics forced emperor Renzong’s court to react. The imperial government, working under the assumption that the key to dealing with epidemics was providing medical knowledge to cope with them, established the Bureau for Revising Medical Texts in 1057. The Bureau published a set of ten books, nine of which were revisions of ancient medical classics and one of which was an innovative materia medica collection. Of these ten books, three were versions of Zhang Zhongjing’s original Treatise, one of which stands out most importantly – the Song edition of the Treatise.1
