Cao Cao grapples with mortality and legacy.

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 99.

Last time, Cao Cao was suffering from some really bad headaches. One of his advisers recommended that he seek out the miracle healer Hua (2) Tuo (2), and Cao Cao promptly sent someone to invite the doctor.

After checking Cao Cao’s pulse, Hua Tuo said, “Your highness’s headaches are caused by a malignant humor inside your skull, where trapped air and fluid are building up. Medicine do you no good. Here is my recommendation: First, I will give you an anesthesia. Then I will use a sharp axe to cut open your skull to release the trapped air and fluid. Only then will the root cause be eliminated.”

“Are you trying to kill me?!” Cao Cao said angrily.

“But your highness, have you not heard about how I treated Guan Yu? He had a poison arrow wound on his right arm. I scraped the poison off his bone, and he showed no sign of fear. So what does your highness have to worry about with such a minor ailment?”

“A hurting arm can be scraped, but how a head be split open?!” Cao Cao shot back. “You must be a good friend of Guan Yu’s, and you are trying to use this opportunity to avenge him!”

So Cao Cao had his men arrest Hua Tuo and interrogate him under torture. Now, the novel means to portray Cao Cao as paranoid here, but in all honesty, if I was living in third-century China, I would probably have a similar reaction to somebody proposing to take an axe to my skull. One of Cao Cao’s advisers tried to talk him into letting Hua Tuo go, since he’s such a rare talent. But Cao Cao was like, no way. And instead he ordered his men to ratchet up the torture.

While Hua Tuo was rotting in prison, one of his jailors was a big fan of his and treated him to wine and food each day. Hua Tuo was grateful for his kindness and told him, “I’m going to die soon. My one regret is that my medical text, the Book of the Black Bag, will be lost to posterity. I have no way to repay your kindness, so I have written a letter. You can send someone to deliver it to my family, and they will give you the book and you may carry on my craft.”

The jailer was delighted. “If I get that book, I will quit this job and dedicate myself to healing the sick so as to spread your virtue,” he said.

So Hua Tuo wrote the letter and the jailer took it to the doctor’s hometown, found his family, and got the book from Hua Tuo’s wife. He brought it back to prison to show Hua Tuo, who then officially bestowed the book to him. The jailer took the book home and hid it.

Ten days later, true to his word, Hua Tuo died in his jail cell. The jailer arranged for his funeral, then quit his job and went home, ready to dive into the medical text and soak up Hua Tuo’s knowledge. But when he got home, he found his wife burning the book. By the time the stunned jailer managed to snatch it out of her hands, the book had been reduced to ashes except for a couple pages.

The jailer angrily cursed his wife, but she told him, “Even if you manage to become as good as Hua Tuo, you would just end up dying in a jail cell, so what’s the use of keeping this around?”

And that, supposedly, is why Hua Tuo’s amazing medical techniques of cutting into people with minimal anesthesia and making them puke up worms did not get passed down through the ages.