(10-96) Some time ago, I talked to a doctor in his fifties. He complained that the younger doctors rely more and more on lab tests, and they seem to have lost some of the clinical skills that's essential to medicine. The story I am going to tell exemplifies the clinical skill essential to Chinese medicine. That skill, or art, may have been lost in Chinese medicine also.

This is a true story written around two or three hundred years ago. A famous doctor named Jia Yan passing through a village in a boat. He saw a young girl washing clothes on the shore. He watched her for a long time. Suddenly he called the oarsman to stop rowing. He ordered a strong servant to swim ashore and sneak behind the girl to grab her. He said: "Do not let go, until I told you so." The servant followed the order and grabbed the girl. The girl was angry. She screamed and kicked. The servant held on even tighter. The girl struggled and yelled, and called out to her parents. Her parents came out and beat the servant. The doctor finally approached the parents and introduced himself: "I am Jia Yan. I saw your girl is in danger of a serious illness, so I ordered my servant to help her. We do not mean any harm." The parents were aware of the doctor's name, so they stopped. The doctor asked: "Did she have measles before?" The parents replied: "Yes." The doctor said: "After a few days, she will feel ill. If measles does not appear, then nothing will help. The reason why I ordered my servant to make her angry is to let the fire in the liver out so that the measles will appear and thus reduce the power of the disease. With the reduced power, there will be room for medicine to work. When the time comes, you may come to my place for medicine."

One night, there's an urgent knock on the doctor's door. It was the father of the village girl he met several days ago. The father said the girl had a fever, and felt restless. The doctor asked if the measles appeared on the skin. The father said there were rash and blisters that appeared angry looking. The doctor was pleased and said to the father your daughter would be fine. He wrote a prescription for the father. Few days later, the daughter was cured.