No doctor to the royal family would have thought his prescriptions could fetch princely sums some 200 years after his death.
Yet, Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) imperial physician Wang Bichang’s manuscript which records 540 kinds of prescriptions, has been valued recently at RMB216 million (P1.576 billion).
Born in 1764, Wang was selected for the Imperial Hospital during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing (1796-1820). After nine years there, Wang left to return to his hometown, but not before he recorded his medical knowledge in Liao Fu Ji (聊復集·怪症彙纂) in 1810.
Many kinds of difficult and rare diseases were included in Liao Fu Ji, including cancer, tumors, hematuria and hematemesis. The manuscript was discovered among several scripts.
Another physician from the Qing period was Ren Xigeng (任錫庚), whose 50 kinds of secret prescriptions were sold for RMB2 million (P14.6 million). Each prescription was valued at RMB40,000 (P292,000). Ten years later, the price is estimated to have risen 10 times.
If this is so, the price of the complete Wang Bichang (汪必昌) manuscript could well be worth a fortune.
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Imperial physician’s prescriptions may be worth RMB200M
