Lãn Ông (Lê Hũ'u Trác,1720–91) and the Vietnamese medical tradition

Abstract

The 18th-century physician Hai Thu'o'ng Lãn Ông is the most celebrated practitioner of Vietnamese medicine. He wrote medical texts and poetry that included, unusually for the time, an autobiographical element and he is the first Vietnamese physician for whom significant biographical information is available. Educated in classical Chinese medicine, he incorporated into the pharmacopoeia traditional herbal remedies indigenous to Vietnam. Despite his inclination to pursue a secluded life, he became the foremost physician of his day and was summoned to the corrupt court of the Trinh Lords in Hanoi, of which he left a revealing account. Since the 19th century his writings have been central to the canon of traditional Vietnamese medicine.