巢元方生平史料留存极少，仅知其在隋代任太医博士，奉诏主持编撰《诸病源候论》。该书系统论述了内、外、妇、儿、五官等各科1700余种病候的病因、病机与证候，是中国医学史上第一部病因证候学专著，不涉及具体方药，专注于「病从何来」的理论探讨，对后世辨证论治体系影响深远。

Very little biographical material on Chao Yuanfang survives; he is known only to have served as an Imperial Physician-Scholar under the Sui dynasty and to have led the compilation of the Treatise on the Origins and Symptoms of Diseases by imperial order. The work systematically discusses the causes, mechanisms, and clinical patterns of over 1,700 conditions across internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, and other specialties. It is China's first dedicated treatise on disease etiology and pattern differentiation — containing no prescriptions at all, focused purely on the theoretical question of "where illness comes from."