Chapter 82: Old and Exceedingly Cunning
The moment he said this, Su Yun was genuinely startled and nearly fled in panic.
Doctor Dong smiled. "I also made my start studying the Old Sage Classics, though I later studied abroad. Don't be afraid. If I dissected you, the Left Vice Minister would dissect me. I suspect you aren't a species from this world. I'll only take a little blood..."
He fetched a silver needle and inserted it into the blood vessel in Su Yun's wrist. Blood flowed from the needle's tip.
"You just said anatomy is a major school of thought. That is right, but also wrong."
Doctor Dong filled two bottles with blood and intended to fill a few more. Only when he saw Su Yun could barely endure it did he reluctantly stop. "You're injured, so I'll take a little less. Anatomy was not a major school of thought, at least not in the past. Whether it is now is hard to say."
Su Yun felt a little dizzy. "Why is that?"
"Although the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon is an Old Sage Classic, Confucianism and Buddhism both resisted it. They said the body, hair, and skin are received from one's parents; they said the fleshly body is but a stinking sack of skin. They would not permit us physicians to dissect corpses, seek out the mysteries of the human body, or trace the origins of wounds and illnesses. Over time, the common people came to view physicians like us, who dissected corpses, as demons."
Doctor Dong said despondently, "Later, the People of Various Nationalities learned our Old Sage Classics. Through dissection, they investigated things and acquired more of the human body's mysteries, probing all things to their ultimate truths. Heh heh, we pioneered dissection and the investigation of things