A Study of the Case Records of a Herbalist En Su-ryong in the late Chosun dynasty

19세기 고창지방 의원 은수룡이 남긴 경험의안

This paper analyzes the case records of a herbalist En Su-ryong who lived at the Kochang area of Chollapukdo province in the 19th century. The records, which were included in his collection of works, Tantojip(呑吐集), were consisted of 11 clinical diagnosis and prescriptions. The result of the analysis is as follows. First, En Su-ryong's records are estimated to be valuable enough to contribute to the development of the Korean clinical medicine, in light of the fact that the present established prescriptions or medical theory came from the repetition of trial and error by many herb doctors. Second, his case records are unique in the style of writing, because they were consisted of only his own clinical diagnosis and prescriptions case by case, while those of ordinary herbalists were classified by the types of the symptoms of a disease, with their prescriptions modified from the past established. Third, in the records he minutely wrote not only the names and the addresses of the patients under his care, but also the names of the diseases, the progress and the contents of his treatment, and even the perfect cure or not. Therefore, his case records are appreciated to be very important from the standpoint of the history of the society.