Born in 912. A mid-Heian court physician and founder of the Tanba clan of imperial doctors. In 984, by imperial command under Emperors En'yū and Kazan, he compiled and presented the 30-volume medical treatise Ishinpō. It is the oldest surviving medical text in Japan, drawing widely on Sui and Tang Chinese medical writings — including works long lost in China itself. Covering internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, regimen, and sexology, it became the foundation of later Japanese medicine. The Tanba clan continued to serve as imperial physicians for generations, carrying on as a family of court doctors down to the Meiji Restoration.

Widely read and conscientious. A deep scholar of Chinese medicine with outstanding editorial skill in adapting it to Japan's conditions. A man of learning who earned the trust of the imperial family as court physician while feeling a lasting responsibility to pass on vast medical knowledge to later generations.

Ishinpō is designated a National Treasure as Japan's oldest medical text, and is now held at the Tokyo National Museum. Preserving content from Sui and Tang medical texts lost in China, it is an indispensable classic not only for the history of Japanese medicine but for East Asian medical history as a whole. The Tanba family went on to stand alongside the Wake as one of the two great lineages of imperial physicians — branching into houses such as the Nakarai and Imaōji — and supporting Japanese medicine for nearly a thousand years.