张仲景将东汉末年那场大瘟疫称为“伤寒”并对其做了家族十年病死率的统计。有学者基于传染病发热伴出血，认为该瘟疫是流行性出血热；笔者基于当时寒冷的气候条件，认为主症属呼吸系统病，是烈性传染病流感，冬春多发，传播途径是“丝绸之路”沿途的贸易活动。张仲景治疗“伤寒”的首方“麻黄汤”源自西域救猝死方“还魂汤”，贸易活动不但带来经济繁荣，还播散疫病，同时又提供治疗瘟疫的方药，因此贸易与医药产品是利弊同在的关系。
Zhang Zhongjing called the great plague at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty “Shang Han” and made the statistics of the family mortality rate for ten years.Some scholars believe that this plague was epidemic hemorrhagic fever because it was infectious disease fever accompanied by bleeding. The author believes that this plague was respiratory disease because it broke out at winter and spring season when was cold. What's more，this plague should be a Severe infectious influenza，of which the transmission way was the Silk Road trade activity. The first prescription of Zhang Zhongjing's treatment to this plague was “MaHuang Decoction” which came from “Resuscitation Decoction” of the western region. Therefore，trade activities not only bring economic prosperity，but also spread epidemic diseases and provide the prescriptions for the epidemic diseases at the same time. Therefore，trade can bring both advantages and disadvantages to the medical products.
