In the late Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), there was a most famous doctor named Hua Tuo.
One day, Hua Tuo was enjoying the cool air in his yard. He spotted a spider under his eave. It was waiting for some unlucky winged insects to fly into his web. A hornet dashed unaware into the web by accident and was trapped. The hungry spider quickly moved toward the hornet and tried to wrap it up in silk. The poor hornet fought desperately not to be captured by the spider. It struggled for all it was worth.
The hornet with its last energy managed to sting the spider. Hua Tuo found that the spider was swelling up quickly. It seemed that this unlucky creature would have no chance to feast on its prey.
As expected, the spider seemed to give up. It, retreated along one of its silk threads, slowly dropping itself down and finally reaching the flowers. What was the spider doing? Hua Tuo decided to find out what was going on. The spider was slowly moving towards an aloe leaf and with its last bit of energy managed to take a bite of it. The juice flew out of the leaf. The spider dipped his legs in the juice. To the doctor’s surprise, the spider totally recovered and the swelling quickly receded. It returned to its web and finally managed to subdue the hornet before tucking into its well deserved meal.
Hua Tuo realized that aloe must have some special qualities. He began to use aloe to relieve the pain of those who were stung by hornets and bees. Sure enough it had magical curative powers. Since then, aloe has been widely used in Chinese medicine and is no longer just a common plant.
