Hua Tuo (c. 140–208), courtesy name Yuanhua, was a Chinese physician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty.

He used a general anaesthetic combining wine with a herbal concoction called mafeisan (麻沸散; literally "cannabis boil powder").

Besides being respected for his expertise in surgery and anaesthesia, Hua Tuo was famous for his abilities in acupuncture, moxibustion, herbal medicine and medical daoyin exercises.

He developed the Wuqinxi (五禽戲; literally "Exercise of the Five Animals") from studying the movements of the tiger, deer, bear, ape and crane.

The oldest extant biographies of Hua Tuo[2][3] are found in the official Chinese histories for the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) and Three Kingdoms period (220–280) of China.

The third-century historical text Records of Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi) and the fifth-century historical text Book of the Later Han (Houhanshu) record that Hua Tuo was from Qiao County (譙縣), Pei Commandery (沛郡) (in present-day Bozhou, Anhui) and that he studied Chinese classics throughout the Xu Province (covering parts of present-day Jiangsu and Shandong provinces).

Hua Tuo's biography in the Sanguozhi describes him as resembling a Daoist xian (仙; "immortal") and details his medical techniques.

If a sickness were concentrated internally where the effect of acupuncture needles and medicines could not reach it, [Hua Tuo] would recognise that it was necessary to operate.

[10]Hua Tuo's biography in the Houhanshu explains this mafeisan "numbing boiling powder" decoction was dissolved in jiu (酒; literally "alcoholic beverage; wine").

[13] For example: The governor of [Guangling], Chen Deng[clarification needed], had an illness which caused him to be distressed by a feeling of stuffiness in his chest.

[Hua Tuo] took his pulse and said, "Your honour, there are several pints of parasitic bugs in your stomach and you are on the verge of developing an ulcer.

[Hua Tuo] would employ acupuncture treatment at the diaphragmatic transport insertion point and the condition would be alleviated as soon as the procedure was carried out.

Proud of his ability and finding it distasteful to wait upon others for a living, [Hua Tuo] continued to procrastinate in setting off on the journey.

Ilza Veith notes that, "Unfortunately, Hua T'o's works were destroyed; his surgical practices fell into disuse, with the exception of his method of castration, which continued to be practised.

"[6] A Liezi legend claims that the renowned physician Bian Que (c. 500 BCE) used anaesthesia to perform a double heart transplantation, but the fourth-century text was compiled after Hua Tuo used mafeisan.

Movement of the limbs facilitates the absorption of nutrients in food and enables the blood in the arteries to flow freely, preventing sickness from occurring.

That's why, when the ancient transcendent practiced duction (guiding of the vital breath through the channels of the body), they strode like a bear and turned their head backward like an owl.

Victor H. Mair notes this unusual name may indicate Fan A was a foreigner, and this area was around present-day Tongshan County, Jiangsu, the "location of the first known Buddhist community in China".

[Hua Tuo] said that if one takes a long course of this medicine, it will get rid of the three worms [types of parasites], benefit the five viscera, make the body feel nimble, and prevent your hair from turning white.

The Song dynasty Confucianist scholar Ye Mengde (1077–1148) criticised the Sanguozhi and Houhanshu biographies of Hua Tuo as being mythological.

His essay, "Physicians Cannot Raise the Dead", repeated the descriptions of Hua Tuo using anaesthesia to perform internal surgery, and reasoned, There is absolutely no principle whereby to account for this.

I have no way of knowing whether [Hua Tuo]'s medicine could make a person intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness so that he could endure being cut open and could fully recuperate, causing the damaged portions to grow back together again.

Hua Tuo is considered a shenyi (神醫, "divine physician") and is worshipped as a medicinal deity or immortal in some Chinese temples.

[citation needed] In the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Hua Tuo heals the general Guan Yu, who is hit by a poisoned arrow in the arm during the Battle of Fancheng in 219.

Hua Tuo uses a knife to cut the flesh from Guan Yu's arm and scrape the poison from the bone, and the sounds strike fear into all those who hear them.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Hua Tuo passes his Qing Nang Shu to a prison guard so that his medical legacy will live on.

[26] The name mafeisan combines ma (麻; "cannabis; hemp; numbed"), fei (沸; "boiling; bubbling") and san (散; "break up; scatter; medicine in powder form").

Ma can mean "cannabis; hemp" and "numbed; tingling" (e.g. mazui 麻醉 "anesthetic; narcotic"), which is semantically "derived from the properties of the fruits and leaves, which were used as infusions for medicinal purposes".

Frederick P. Smith contends that Hua Tuo, "the Machaon of Chinese historical romance", used yabulu (押不蘆; "Mandragora officinarum") rather than huoma (火麻; "cannabis") and mantuolo (曼佗羅; "Datura stramonium", nota bene, Hua's given name "Tuo") "infused in wine, and drunk as a stupefying medicine".

[33] Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham suggest Hua Tuo may have discovered surgical analgesia by acupuncture, "quite apart from the stupefying potions for which he became so famous – if so he kept it to himself and his immediate disciples so that the secret did not survive".