Wu County (now Suzhou, Jiangsu) native of Dongting East Mountain, during the Ming Dynasty, multiple pestilence outbreaks were the objective impetus for Wu's research into pestilence. At that time, the medical community adhered to ancient methods that did not suit contemporary diseases and simplified ancient texts to fit modern ailments, leading to ineffective treatments. This situation strongly propelled him to think, and his strong sense of social responsibility drove him to explore warm diseases. The prevalence of pestilence, "contemporary doctors mistakenly treated it with cold-damage disease methods, and it was rare to see them not fail," some died due to delayed treatment in the deficient stage, some died from the misuse of strong tonics and the disorder of attack and supplementation. Some doctors, not seeing the urgency, used slow-acting drugs for acute diseases, leading to prolonged deaths, "everywhere," which pained Wu deeply, leading him to write the Wenyi Lun in 1642.

Wenyi Lun documented various pestilence diseases, including cold-damage disease, common cold, malaria, smallpox (chickenpox, smallpox), cholera, glandular plague, mumps, swollen-head infection, probing pestilence, leprosy, cervical lymph Jiehexue, fire flow (erysipelas of shank), erysipelas, red eye swelling and pain (conjunctivitis, trachoma), jaundice (hepatitis, jaundice), macula and papule, throat swelling, sores, and abscesses, etc., covering a wide range of topics, summarizing his personal experiences with pestilence outbreaks and clinical experiences.

Wenyi Lun was a significant breakthrough in the development of Chinese medicine, paving the way for the later warm diseases school. His innovative spirit was widely praised. Wu You-xing had practically approached the theory of bacterial pathogens; his so-called pestilential qi had substance, specificity, partial neutrality, and special pathogenicity. Only by advancing further along this path and identifying the substance itself could a historical breakthrough be made. However, limited by the material and technical conditions of the time and influenced by traditional ways of thinking, his successors clearly regressed in this aspect.

Wu also had cold-damage disease records, which are now lost. There is also pestilence combined, which was compiled by Wang Jiamo in the Qing Dynasty based on Wu's original works, with additions, deletions, and supplements.