There is indeed no physician more eminent than Heo Jun (1539–1615) in Korean society. His major work, the Dongui Bogam is regarded not only as the most significant medical text representing Korean medicine but also as the pride of the whole country. When health-related books are published, products of pharmaceutical companies are advertised, or health-related TV programs are televised, it is common to quote the relevant passages from the Dongui Bogam. Such trends show how reputable this book is considered in Korea. The Korean people’s trust in Heo Jun was not established overnight, however. Rather, it is the result of the bond of sympathy, which has long been developed among Korean people about the importance of medicine and healing. The bond of sympathy even matured after the publication of the Dongui Bogam, and continues on into the present day.


It is necessary to understand the medical thoughts of Heo Jun and the contents of the Dongui Bogam in order to understand Korean medicine. The Dongui Bogam, compiled by Heo Jun, has great significance in that it has not only systematically organized the medicine since East Asian medicine existed through to the mid-Joseon Korea, but also become the core text of Korean medicine ever since. In other words, the understanding of the medical thoughts of Heo Jun is connected to the comprehension of Korean medicine, which is, in turn, the way to understand the basis of East Asian medicine.

Heo Jun gave a fresh impetus to the medical world at that time by interweaving his medical thoughts into a system centered around the matters of nature and human being, body and disease, life and death, and so on. He succeeded in organizing various medical theories and prescriptions of physicians from the Warring States period (403 B.C.–221 B.C.) to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) into a clearly ordered system. His treatise triggered a sensational response from the medical world that had craved medical texts to cover both clear and abundant medical technologies. The book did not just list treatments according to the diagnosis of the symptoms of diseases. The core of his medical thoughts as well as the trend toward greater description of therapeutic methods at the time, which the medical world of the time wanted, was that all illnesses are phenomena that revolve around humans. Thus the way to understand and approach diseases starts from the minute observation of each human being itself.

The Dongui Bogam is composed of five broad sections: Internal Bodily Elements, External Bodily Elements, Miscellaneous Disorders, Herbs, and Acupuncture and Moxibustion. The five sections are not set up independently, but mutually related. Most previous medical texts took the form that focused on the name of diseases and covered each subjects independently, whereas the Dongui Bogam adopted a completely different form. He took a macroscopic, rather than microscopic view of the human body based on the perspective that humans live in nature and undergo innate and acquired influences in the processes of birth and growth. In addition, what the book emphasized was high utility in clinical situations. The availability was possible due to the flexible recognition, which enabled the thought of correlating diseases in a multidimensional way. Although it seems the contents are organized independently without any interrelationship, the contents are interconnected.

The ‘Internal Bodily Elements’ chapter starts with the part called the ‘Body’, by discussing the value of human nature. Even though the contents might seem a bit old-fashioned now, the book starts from the crux of the East Asian value on human nature at that time. It thus discusses the series of processes about how humans think, breath, move, and metabolize. Moreover, it implies that human diseases occur during every step of such processes, since all chapters include the diseases that could possibly occur during each step and the useful prescriptions and drugs that suit each changing situation.

The ‘External Bodily Elements’ chapter describes physiology and diseases based on the human external features, such as the head, face, eyes, and nose, and also the appropriate treatments and therapeutic techniques for each. The following chapter, ‘Miscellaneous Disorders’ is the section of the treatise that can only be grasped on the basis of a deep understanding of the two preceding sections on the internal and external aspect of humans, and such is the case as well for the ‘Herbs’ and ‘Acupuncture and Moxibustion’ chapters.

The ‘Herbs’ chapter, which discusses drugs, and the ‘Acupuncture and Moxibustion’ chapter, which discusses acupuncture and moxibustion techniques, add the overall explanation of the drugs, acupuncture, and moxibustion mentioned earlier in the two ‘Internal Bodily Elements’ and ‘External Bodily Elements’ sections such that the chapters are organized in a complementary manner. The uniqueness of such system of organization and the medical thought that was intended to comprehend human beings holistically in their connection with nature are the original factors of the medicine of Heo Jun. While the overall table of contents is rooted in the general understanding of humans, the content of each item within this overarching structure is directly connected to specific treatments. In other words, after the name of each disease the book lists and explains the medical theories that are necessary to understand in order to treat that certain disease. It also lists methods of diagnosis by pulse taking and prescriptions in sequence, one-drug prescriptions, methods of acupuncture and moxibustion, and lastly, methods of health preservation.

Looking at the details of the book, we can relate the section on ‘Internal Bodily Elements’, composed of four parts, with physiology, in the respect that it covers mainly the internal aspects of the human body. In the first part, under the titles of ‘Body’, ‘Essence’, ‘Qi’, ‘Spirit,’ it explains the actions of essence, qi, and spirit, which are considered the three basic units of human physiology in Taoism, and then also adds the relevant treatment methods. It is one of the points of distinction between the Dongui Bogam and other medical texts. In other words, it is unique in that the concepts used in Taoism are medically accepted. The second part reflects human internal conditions as seen through headings such as ‘Blood’, ‘Dreams’, ‘Voice’, ‘Speech’, ‘Fluids and Humors’, and ‘Phlegm and Fluid Retention.’ We can thus predict the internal condition of human bodies based on clinical signs, such as ‘Blood’ through the aspect of bleeding, ‘dreams’ through interpretations of the contents of dreams, ‘voice’ and ‘speech’ through pitch, rhythm, and other vocal aspects, ‘fluids and humors’ and ‘phlegm and fluid retention’ through shapes and places of secretion.

Following the first section on ‘Internal Bodily Elements,’ the second section on ‘External Bodily Elements,’ also composed of four parts, covers the corporeal features that are external to human bodies. Throughout the first and second parts, it includes the regions from the tip of the head to the back, such as ‘Head’, ‘Face’, ‘Eyes’, ‘Ear’, ‘Nose’, ‘Mouth and Tongue’, ‘Teeth’, ‘Throat’, ‘Neck’, ‘Back.’ Throughout the third and fourth parts, the order goes downward along the body from the ‘Chest’, ‘Breast’, and ‘Abdomen’ to the ‘Navel/Umbilicus’, ‘Waist and Low Back’, and ‘Flanks’. The human tissues are examined from outside to inside from the ‘Skin’, ‘Flesh’, and ‘Pulses’ to the ‘Tendons’ and ‘Bones,’ and, subsequently, the related symptoms and treatments are discussed in the following order from the ‘Hands’, ‘Feet’, and ‘Hair’ to the ‘Genitals’ and ‘Anus.’

Following the section on ‘External Bodily Elements,’ there is the third section on ‘Miscellaneous Disorders’ composed of eleven parts. Since the Dongui Bogam considers that it is impossible to diagnose diseases properly without the accurate knowledge of diseases, it discusses systematically the broad principle of diagnosis and treatment in the first part of each section. Throughout the second, third, and fourth part, it focuses on the causes of diseases by describing the six external pathogens—such as the ‘Wind’, ‘Cold’, ‘Summer-heat’, ‘Dampness’, ‘Dryness’, and ‘Fire’—and endogenous diseases, such as ‘Internal Damage’ and ‘Deficiency Vexation.’ Next, throughout the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth parts, it lists and explains the commonly occurring diseases at that time. The diseases include ‘Intestinal Convulsion’, ‘Vomiting’, ‘Coughing’, ‘Accumulations’, ‘Edema’, ‘Distention’, ‘Wasting-thirst’, ‘Jaundice’, ‘Malaria’, ‘Epidemic Diseases’, ‘Mania’, ‘Abscesses’, ‘Boils’, and so on. The ninth part discusses mainly the medical knowledge needed in daily life, such as ‘Common Wounds’, ‘Detoxification’, ‘Emergencies’, ‘Diseases of Unknown Causes’, and ‘Various Prescriptions.’ The tenth and eleventh parts cover in-depth ‘Gynecology’ and ‘Pediatrics’, respectively. Following the section on ‘Miscellaneous Disorders’ are the fourth section on ‘Herbs,’ composed of three parts and the fifth and final section on ‘Acupuncture and Moxibustion,’ composed of one part. These two sections cover medicinal related to treatments and therapeutic measures, respectively.

In sum, the order in which the five sections are arranged is as follows; first, after the book covers the internal aspects of human bodies in ‘Internal Bodily Elements,’ it covers their external aspects in ‘External Bodily Elements’ so that together they systematically discuss both the human body’s interior and exterior dimensions. The first two sections are followed by the section on ‘Miscellaneous Disorders,’ which in this sequence implies that miscellaneous disorders occur due to disharmony between the interior and exterior parts of human bodies. The means to treat such disorders are then covered in the remaining two sections on ‘Herbs’ and ‘Acupuncture and Moxibustion.’ Likewise, the Dongui Bogam conveys the message through its table of contents that physicians should understand the interior and exterior aspects of human bodies, and when a disease occurs, they should treat it only after understanding its cause and symptoms.

*This series of articles about the Dongui Bogam has been made possible through the cooperation of the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine.