His courtesy name was Shiyu, and he lived during the Yongzheng to Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty (1723~1795). He was originally from Tongxi, Changzhou. In his youth, he studied Confucianism but repeatedly failed the imperial examinations, so he turned to medicine, extensively reading medical texts. During the Qianlong era (1736~1795), he resided in Tongcheng. When his father contracted a seasonal epidemic and died due to misdiagnosis by various physicians, he returned home to mourn. Upon reviewing the treatments used, he found that they were all prescriptions for cold-damage disease. Consequently, he delved deeply into materia medica and, after thirty years of clinical practice with rich experience, authored the two-volume work Yizhen Yide (1785), which focused on the diagnosis and treatment of epidemic eruptive diseases. His work had some similarities and differences with Wu You-ke's Wenyi Lun. He advocated the theory that "only gypsum can treat heat epidemics," which enriched and advanced the treatment methods for epidemic eruptive diseases.