Wǔwēi Hàndài Yījiǎn · Dì Èr Lèi Jiǎn 武威漢代醫簡‧第二類簡
Wuwei Han Medical Slips — Category Two Slips
Anonymous (excavated from Hantanpo site, Wuwei, Gansu, 1972)
About the work
The Wǔwēi Hàndài Yījiǎn 武威漢代醫簡 (“Wuwei Han Medical Slips”) Category Two (第二類簡, KR2p0099) is the second division of the Wuwei medical slip corpus, discovered in 1972 at Hantanpo 旱灘坡, Wuwei, Gansu. It contains an additional set of medical prescriptions covering digestive and abdominal conditions, traumatic wound treatment, wound suppuration, nasal ailments, and a general “thousand-gold ointment” (qiānjīn gāo yào 千金膏藥方). The slips are written in Later Han clerical script with the same orthographic conventions as the Category One material.
Abstract
Category Two slips were excavated and published as part of the Wuwei medical slip corpus (甘肅省博物館、武威縣文化館 [eds.], 《武威漢代醫簡》, 文物出版社, 1975; standard English study: Yang and Brown, Early China 40, 2017). The title 第二類簡 is a modern editorial designation reflecting the physical organization of the slips.
The corpus opens with the “魯氏青行解解腹方” (“Formula for Purging the Abdomen according to the Lu Clan’s Blue-Green Moving Method”):
“治魯氏青行解解腹方：麻黃卅分，大黃十五分，厚朴、石膏、苦參各六分，烏喙、付子各二分，凡七物皆并冶合，和以方寸匕一飲之，良甚，皆𢠚” — “Treating the Lu-clan’s blue-green unblocking formula for the abdomen: ephedra (máhuáng 麻黃) 30 fēn, rhubarb (dàhuáng 大黃) 15 fēn, magnolia bark (hòupò 厚朴), gypsum (shígāo 石膏), Sophora (kǔshēn 苦參) each 6 fēn, aconite (wūhuì 烏喙) and aconite-root (fùzǐ 付子/附子) each 2 fēn. Seven ingredients total: pulverize and combine all; take one square-inch-spoon (fāng cùn bǐ 方寸匕) in a drink — excellent, all [cases] recover.” The attribution to a “Lu clan” (Lǔ shì 魯氏) and the descriptor “blue-green moving” (青行) are formulaic and may refer to a family medical tradition; the blue-green color possibly alludes to the color of bile or to the medicinal ephedra preparation.
Additional prescriptions in Category Two address:
- A “heart-abdomen large accumulation” (xīn fù dà jī 心腹大積) that moves up and down like an insect — treated with blister beetles (bān máo 班𨱞), earth worms (dì□ 地□), and cinnamon bark.
- A buried-beam (fú liáng 伏梁) condition with pus in the intestinal exterior — treated with rhubarb, peony (sháo yào 勺藥), saltpeter, cinnamon, mulberry root bark (sāng bì xiāo 桑卑肖), and inchworms (zhè chóng 䗪虫).
- A ritual fumigation pit treatment for preventing disease relapse: a pit the depth of a human body, filled with dried sheep dung burned while the patient reclines above it.
- Gold-wound (traumatic injury) treatments for internal bleeding, wound pain, and bowel prolapse.
- A “Thousand-Gold Ointment” (qiānjīn gāo yào fāng 治千金膏藥方) using Sichuan pepper, lovage (chuānxiōng 弓窮), báizhǐ 白芷, and aconite — cooked in camellia oil with lard, mixed with egg yolk — for topical application to suppurating wounds with detailed instructions for re-application until healing.
- Nasal ailments and nasal息肉 (nasal polyps) — treated with a graduated regimen using Chinese wolfsbane (lì lú 利廬), alum (tíng lì 亭磨), aconite, and Gleditsia pods.
The text also preserves a note — “此膏藥大良，勿得傳” (“This ointment is greatly efficacious — do not transmit [the formula]”) and similar禁传 admonitions on several prescriptions — reflecting the practice of keeping medical formulas as proprietary secrets within lineages or households.
Like Category One, the slips use tōngjiǎ notation throughout: 𢠚 for 愈, 恿 for 痛, 付子 for 附子, 𤵸 for 淋, 勺藥 for 芍藥, etc.
Translations and research
- Yang, Yong, and Miranda Brown. “The Wuwei Medical Manuscripts: A Brief Introduction and Translation.” Early China 40 (2017): 241–301. — Standard English translation and study.
- 甘肅省博物館、武威縣文化館 (eds.). 《武威漢代醫簡》. 北京: 文物出版社, 1975.
- 張延昌. 《武威漢代醫簡注解》. 北京: 中醫古籍出版社, 2006.
- Hinrichs, T.J., and Linda L. Barnes (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Other points of interest
The fumigation-pit therapy described in Category Two — burning dried sheep dung in a human-sized pit and having the patient recline over it — represents an unusual and otherwise poorly-attested treatment modality in early Chinese medical literature. It may reflect Central Asian or steppe medical practices that entered the western Han frontier zone through Gansu, consistent with Wuwei’s position as a key node on the early Silk Road. The “Lu-clan” attribution in the opening formula similarly hints at local medical lineages whose texts do not survive except through this excavated evidence.