At first, the royal court would issue a recruitment decree. Then, local mandarins would make a list of nominees and send it to the Ministry of Rites. These ones would be summoned to the capital so that the royal court could hold an examination. The examination council included the Cabinet, the Privy Council, the Royal Guard and the Imperial Medicine Institute. Every two years, the royal court organized periodical exams to test the medical capacity of these medical officials. Those who didn’t make it would be dismissed to give way to the better ones.
History books also record that one time, due to negligence, Thai Y Vien offered the medicine in which there was a worm to the Emperor. Immediately, the two medical assistants who offered the medicine were demoted to 4 levels. The book Dai Nam Thuc Luc, 3rd century, 183rd volume wrote: “The two physicians, Hoang Duc Ha and Dang Cong Tuan, were put in prison. Previously, when Emperor Minh Mang was seriously ill, the treatment they proposed was ineffective. When this issue was brought to court for discussion, it was said that the two physicians knew the problem but didn’t say anything, which was disloyal. Even worse, they dared to follow their own will, which was disrespectful. There is nothing greater than the sin of disloyalty and disrespect. Hence, they were convicted of the crime of beheading, and were imprisoned until the trial date.”
As the capital of Dang Trong (the Inner Realm), Thuan Hoa, formerly of Hue, is the land of royal physicians. Among the 85 physicians selected to enter Thai Y Vien during Gia Long’s reign, 73 were from Thua Thien Hue. The three villages with many of the best physicians recruited to work at Thai Y Vien are An Truyen Village, Vy Da Canton, Xuan Hoa Village, Kim Long Canton, and Vinh Xuong Village, Vinh Xuong Canton.
An Truyen Village had a famous royal physician, Mr. Doan Van Hoa, who served as the first Head of Thai Y Vien during the reign of Emperor Minh Mang. Meanwhile, Van Duong Village had a royal physician named Nguyen Hanh, who became the Head of Thai Y Vien during Emperor Tu Duc’s reign. Xuan Hoa Village alone had 10 famous physicians invited to work at Thai Y Vien during the reign of Emperor Minh Mang. In particular, up to seven members of the Le Quang family worked at Thai Y Vien during many Emperors’ reign.
The first famous royal physician of the Le Quang family was named Le Quang Viep. Legend has it that during the reign of Emperor Quang Trung, he was invited to work as a royal physician for the royal court. When Emperor Gia Long regained his fortune, thanks to his superior medical skills, he was still highly respected and appointed as Deputy Head of Thai Y Vien of the Nguyen Dynasty.
In ancestral houses of many famous and royal physicians in Hue, there still exists many documents related to their predecessors, such as the ordinations of Nguyen Emperors, precious royal medicinal recipes, and even traditional oriental medicine recipes, all of which are written in Han-Nom script.
Physician Thich Tue Tam, also a monk, Vice Chairman of the Oriental Medicine Association of Thua Thien Hue Province, is the person who has collected and inherited such good remedies. He said that he was once invited to treat a stranger in an ancient temple. The patient acted really strange: not showing his face, just lying hidden behind a curtain, and putting his hand out to check his pulse. Even the illness declaration process was conducted through the intermediary of a relative. Until she was healed, the patient revealed that she was the daughter of a royal physician of Nguyen Dynasty, who had worked in the Imperial Citadel.
Admiring the medical ethics of the physician, she ordered her family members to give him all the family’s precious documents. Those are the traditional medicine recipes of the royal physician. Not being able to find a successor, the descendants have kept them as a family secret.
“The ancients believed that if a person did not practice medicine honestly, his/her next three generations would never thrive. So, they would definitely not pass the profession onto unworthy ones, even their children and grandchildren. They would rather take it with them to the nine streams,” said monk Tue Tam. According to the famous physician, this is the reason why many traditional remedies of famous medical families are forgotten and gradually lost, especially when oriental medicine is not respected for a long time.
Recently, Mr. Le Minh Khiem, the son of the researcher Le Nguyen Luu, a Han-Nom translator, said that his family was also keeping many traditional oriental remedies of the Hoang family in My Loi village, one member of which was a royal physician under the reigns of Emperors Khai Dinh and Bao Dai, Mr. Hoang Cong Truc. The recipies are beautifully handwritten either in Han or Nom in old, yellowing notebooks. He and his father wish that these documents will be translated and printed into books for widespread circulation.
According to physician Thich Tue Tam, it is extremely necessary to find valuable royal medicine recipes preserved by folks. They need to be preserved, and, particularly, translated into the national language to supplement current oriental medicine remedies to cure diseases and save lives. “I have translated some and applied them to current diagnostic and treatment activities at Tue Tinh Duong Lien Hoa Traditional Medicine Application Center, which is extremely effective.”
Monk Tue Tam also said that one difficulty was that there wasn’t enough translators of this category in Hue at the moment. To make matters worse, many of those documents are no longer intact, with many pages having been torn and many words having been missing. Without proper understanding into oriental medicine, it is difficult to recognize the original words to create a complete and correct translated version.