Example sentences
yī医shēng生zěn怎me么shuō说？
What did the doctor say?
tā他qù去kàn看yī医shēng生le了。
He went to see a doctor.
The story behind the character
医
The traditional 醫 is a container holding 矢 (an arrow) and 酉 (wine). The ancients treated wounds with an arrow for surgery (lancing, bleeding) and wine for disinfection. So the earliest doctor's toolkit was one arrow and one jug of wine.
生
A sprout poking out of the ground: the bottom line is the soil, the rest is the shoot coming up. Xu Shen wrote 生, 进也, 象草木生出土上: "to grow, like a plant breaking the surface." So the 生 in 学生 and 先生 started as a blade of grass sprouting.