醫

It is a compound character, formed from:

酉 (yu, “wine, ferment,” functioning as the semantic element);

殹 (ye, “groaning sound when ill,” as the phonetic element).

Shuowen defines 醫:

「治病工也。殹，惡姿也；醫之性然。得酒而使，從酉。酒所以治病也。」 — "A craftsman of healing. 殹 is an ugly posture; such is the nature of the physician. Treatment is done with the aid of wine, hence 酉. Wine is the means of curing illness."

This definition encodes the ancient Chinese understanding of medicine: fermented liquor was among the oldest medicinal treatments, used for disinfection, pain relief, and as a solvent for herbal preparations. The compound 醫酒 (medicinal wine) is attested in the Zhou Rites (周禮).

It denotes “doctor,” “medicine,” and related ideas such as 의사 (醫師, doctor) and 의약품 (醫藥品, medicine, medical drugs).

Common compounds:

의사 (醫師) – doctor;

의원 (醫員) – medical practitioner / hospital;

의약 (醫藥) – medicine, medical treatment;

의학 (醫學) – medical science;

수의사 (獸醫師) – veterinarian.

The compound 巫醫 (무의/wūyī) — "shaman-doctor; shamans and doctors" — captures the historical overlap between ritual practice and medical treatment in ancient China. Medicine in the early Zhou period was not clearly distinguished from shamanistic healing; the wuyi operated at their intersection.

《論語》 (Analects of Confucius, c. 5th–4th century BCE):

「南人有言曰：人而無恆，不可以作巫醫。」

"The people of the south have a saying: 'A man without constancy cannot be either a shaman or a doctor.'"

This passage — one of the earliest classical attestations of 醫 in the literary record — places doctor (醫) and shaman (巫) together as parallel professions both requiring steadiness of character. That the two are bracketed together in a single proverb reflects the period when they had not yet fully separated into distinct vocations.

Related characters:

巫 — shaman; spirit medium (in 毉 and 巫醫)

藥 — medicine; medicinal plant (herb under a container)

There is also an older variant character 毉 (U+6BC9), which uses 巫 (shaman/sorcerer) in place of 酉 at the bottom — directly encoding the historical connection between medicine and shamanic healing practice in ancient China.