A Medical Decree from Collected Essentials of Song Dynasty
Reproduction from manuscript in National Beijing Library.
The Collected Essentials of the Song (Song hui yao) was a massive collection of government memorials and decrees. It was lost, but was partly reconstituted from an encyclopedia compiled at the beginning of the 15th century and printed by the Chung Hua Book Company in 1960. It is the richest surviving collection of historical materials from the Song Dynasty. Its chapters on "Respecting Confucianism" and "Officials" include many medical decrees, reflecting the priority that the Song government gave to medicine. (Collection of Chinese Museum for History.)