Abstract
Objectives: There are many unknowns surrounding Jeong-Jo's death. To better understand Jeong-Jo's death, we closely inspected his medical records from the 20 days before his death in The Annals of the Chosun Dynasty (朝鮮王朝實錄) and Seungjeongwon Ilgi (承政院日記), Understanding medical treatment before death, we can correctly trace the cause of Jeong-Jo's death. Methods: According to The Annals of the Chosun Dynasty (朝鮮王朝實錄) and Seungjeongwon Ilgi (承政院日記), we examined his medical records between June 14 and June 28 of 1800, as to the change in chief complaint, cold and heat, thirst, syndrome differentiation, the opinions of Jeong-Jo, and the opinions of doctors, The original work, The Annals of the Chosun Dynasty and Seungjeongwon Ilgi were provided by NIKH (The National Institute of Korean History). The Korean translation of The Annals of the Chosun Dynasty was also provided by NIKH. Seungjeongwon Ilgi (original work written in Chinese characters) was directly translated into Korean by the study author. Results: 1. Jeong-Jo's is likely to have died of septicemia caused by an abscess on his back. 2. The cause of Jeong-Jo's death could be stroke due to hypertension, mental stress, and 'Wha (火) disease' Conclusions: The dominant view that Jeong-Jo was murdered by poison is not likely.
