Shěn Kuò 沈括 (1029–1093), zì Cúnzhōng 存中, Northern-Sòng polymath — astronomer, mathematician, geologist, surveyor, military officer, diplomat, hydraulic engineer, music theorist, calendar reformer, and physician — and one of the most original empirical thinkers of the Sòng dynasty. Born in Qiántáng 錢塘 (Hángzhōu); held a series of senior court appointments under Shénzōng (1067–1085), including Tàishǐ lìng 太史令 (Astronomer Royal), Hànlín scholar (翰林學士), and Vice-Director (Lǐbù shǎngshū) before being demoted after the Yǒnglèchéng 永樂城 military disaster (1082). His major medical contributions are the Liáng fāng 良方 (Excellent Prescriptions, 10 juan) — the personal-experience clinical formulary that, posthumously combined with Sū Shì’s medical-and-pharmacological miscellany, became the SūShěn liáng fāng 蘇沈良方 (KR3e0020) — and the Yào yì 藥議 (“Discussions on Pharmacy”, the closing juan of the Mèngxī bǐtán 夢溪筆談 KR3j-tbd), the most original Sòng-period work on materia medica’s xíngzhuàngxìngwèizhēnwěitóngyì 形狀性味真偽同異 (form, nature, taste, authenticity, identity-and-difference). His comprehensive treatise Mèngxī bǐtán (ca. 1086–1093), composed in retirement at his villa Mèngxī 夢溪 outside Zhènjiāng 鎮江, is the foundational work of Sòng natural-philosophical and technical observation. Biography: Sòng shǐ j. 331.