prodigy who may have independently discovered and used Archimedes' principle, died from illness. The Sanguozhi does not specify Hua Tuo's exact date of death, but since Cao Chong died in 208, Hua Tuo could not have lived past that year. Hua Tuo's biography ends with accounts of his disciples Wu Pu () and Fan A (). Fan A was skilled at acupuncture and inserted the needles to extraordinary depths. Victor H. Mair notes this unusual name may indicate Fan A was a foreigner, and this area was around present-day Tongshan County, Jiangsu, the "location of the first known Buddhist community in China". These herbs are qiye (; Toxicodendron vernicifluum leaves) and qingdian (; Sigesbeckia orientalis). The Song dynasty Confucianist scholar Ye Mengde (1077–1148) criticised the Sanguozhi and Houhanshu biographies of Hua Tuo as being mythological. His "Physicians Cannot Raise the Dead" essay repeated the descriptions of Hua Tuo using anaesthesia to perform internal surgery, and reasoned, In later times, a set of 34 paravertebral acupuncture points was named "Hua Tuo Jiaji" () in his honour. Hua Tuo is considered a shenyi (, "divine physician") and is worshipped as a medicinal Deity or immortal in some Chinese temples. "Hua Tuo zaishi" (; "Hua Tuo reincarnated") is also an honourable term of respect that will be bestowed to a highly-skilled physician. Fictional accounts In the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Hua Tuo heals the general Guan Yu, who is hit by a poisoned arrow in the arm during the Battle of Fancheng in 219. Hua Tuo offers to anaesthetise Guan Yu, but he simply laughs and says that he is not afraid of pain. Hua Tuo uses a knife to cut the flesh from Guan Yu's arm and scrape the poison from the bone, and the sounds strike fear into all those who heard them. During this excruciating treatment, Guan Yu continues to play a game of weiqi with Ma Liang without flinching from pain. When Ma Liang asks him later, Guan Yu says that he feigned being unhurt to keep the morale of his troops high. After Hua Tuo's successful operation, Guan Yu allegedly rewards him with a sumptuous banquet, and offers a gift of 100 ounces of gold, but Hua Tuo refuses, saying that a physician's duty is to heal patients and not to make profit. Although Hua Tuo historically died in 208, a decade before Guan