The sitting doctor originated from Zhang Zhongjing.
People call the doctor of traditional Chinese medicine who feels the pulse, asks questions and prescribes prescriptions "sitting doctor", so how did this title come from? In fact, the title of "sitting doctor" has a history of nearly two thousand years. It was originally used to address Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
during the Jian' an period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing used to be the prefect of Changsha. On the first and fifteenth days of each month, he was promoted to the yamen in the lobby to treat patients without asking about political affairs. This is the origin of the "sitting doctor". Zhang Zhongjing loved reading and medical skills since childhood, and was called "the sage of medicine and the ancestor of prescription" by later generations.
according to the preface of Zhang Zhongjing's treatise on febrile diseases, his family was originally large, with more than 2 people, but after Jian' an, two-thirds died of illness in less than ten years, and about seven-tenths of them died of typhoid fever. This was very common at that time, but people didn't pay attention to medicine. Secular people always pursued wealth, and when they got sick, they were keen to find a witch doctor to treat them. Zhang Zhongjing was deeply saddened by this, so he earnestly sought the ancient teachings and learned from others, and wrote "Treatise on Exogenous Febrile Diseases".
Allusions related to Zhang Zhongjing:
When Zhang Zhongjing worked in Changsha, he often treated the people and was very loved by the masses. After retirement, I am idle in my hometown in Nanyang, and the people in Changsha send representatives to visit my hometown every year.
In his twilight years, approaching the centenary, people who came to visit him in Changsha wanted him to be buried in Changsha, but people in Nanyang disagreed, and the two sides quarreled endlessly about it. Zhang Zhongjing said: after eating Changsha water, I don't forget Changsha's old feelings; Born in Nanyang, I don't forget my hometown. After I die, you will carry my coffin from Nanyang to Changsha, and bury me where the spiritual rope is broken.
In the winter of that year, Zhang Zhongjing drove the crane to the west, and the day of his death happened to be the winter solstice. When the funeral procession went to the place where Zhang Zhongjing gave everyone a cold soup, the coffin rope suddenly broke. Everyone was buried on the spot according to Zhang Zhongjing's entrustment, and the people spontaneously built a temple for him in front of the grave. Zhang Zhongjing died on the winter solstice, and it was also on the winter solstice that he gave everyone a soup to dispel cold and charming ears. In order to commemorate him, everyone has to pack a jiaozi meal on the winter solstice from now on.
In 285 AD, after Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, unified the world, Zhang Zhongjing's body was transported back to his hometown for burial by later generations, and a medical shrine and Zhongjing's tomb were built in Nanyang. After liberation, the "Medical Shrine" was renovated and the "Zhang Zhongjing Memorial Hall" was built to commemorate this medical scientist who laid the foundation of TCM therapeutics in China.