Wáng Tāo 王燾 (ca. 670–755), Táng official-physician and the compiler of the Wàitái mìyào 外臺秘要 (KR3e0015) — the great Táng-period encyclopedic clinical formulary in 40 juan, completed in Tiānbǎo 11 (752). A native of Méi 郿 (Shǎnxī) and grandson of the early-Táng grand-secretary 王珪 Wáng Guī (570–639), Wáng Tāo received only a brief notice as an appendix to his grandfather’s biography in the Xīn Tángshū, where he is described as exceptionally filial (his mother fell ill, and for the better part of a year he did not unbelt himself, personally tasting her medicines), drawn into medical study by repeated visits to physicians on her behalf, and rising to be Vice-Director of the Imperial Library (給事中) and Grand Protector of Yè Commandery (鄴郡太守). His preface to the Wàitái refers to twenty-some years of access to the Hóngwénguǎn 弘文館 imperial library, where he transcribed and excerpted the medical literature of the previous millennium; the title Wàitái refers to his Yè Commandery tenure (the Tang practice of designating a Censorate-Inspectorate-bearing prefect as 外臺 “outside the censorate”). The Sòng zhì records that he also compiled a Wàitái yàoluè 外臺要略 in 10 juan, since lost.