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馬王堆漢墓帛書‧五十二病方（諸傷）

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Text ID
KR2p0171
Date
-300–-168
Dynasty
漢

Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū‧Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng (Zhū Shāng) 馬王堆漢墓帛書‧五十二病方（諸傷）

Mawangdui Han Tomb Silk Manuscripts — Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments (section: Various Wounds)

(anonymous; excavated silk manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

The Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng 五十二病方 (“Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments”) is the most extensive and heterogeneous medical text recovered from Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 Tomb 3, sealed in 168 BCE. It is a compilation of medical recipes (fāng 方) organized by condition (bìng 病), covering fifty-two disease categories. The present Kanripo text preserves the Zhū Shāng 諸傷 (“Various Wounds / Various Injuries”) section — the opening portion of the received CHANT transcription — together with several adjacent categories: Shāng Jìng 傷痙 (“Tetanus from Wounds”), Yīng’ér Suǒ Jìng 嬰兒索痙 (“Infantile Convulsive Tetanus”), Yīng’ér Bìng Jiān 嬰兒病間 (“Infant Epileptic Seizure”), Yīng’ér Chì 嬰兒瘛 (“Infant Convulsions”), Kuáng Quǎn Niè Rén 狂犬齧人 (“Dog Bites”), and further sections on rabies (quǎn shì rén 犬筮人), parasites, snakebite, and others. The Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng as a whole is the largest and most varied of the Mawangdui medical manuscripts; the Zhū Shāng section preserved here is among the most medically concrete, providing detailed treatment protocols for traumatic injuries, bleeding, wound infection, and related conditions.

Prefaces

No preface or postface preserved; excavated manuscript.

Abstract

Discovery and provenance. The Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng was among the silk texts recovered from Mǎwángduī Tomb 3 at Chángshā, Húnán, excavated by the Húnán Provincial Museum in 1973–74. The tomb was sealed in 168 BCE. The silk had deteriorated into fragments in antiquity; the text was reconstructed and first published in 1979 by the Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū Editorial Group (馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組) as part of the initial volume of the Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū series, with the critical edition of the medical texts following in 1985. The title Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng is preserved in the manuscript itself — it appears in a table-of-contents-like opening section — making it one of the very few Mawangdui texts with an internal title.

Content of the Zhū Shāng section. The Zhū Shāng 諸傷 (“Various Injuries”) section is a collection of recipes and procedures for treating traumatic wounds. The materia medica includes pitch (gāo 膏), dried ginger (jiāng 薑), Chinese pepper (jiāo 椒), cinnamon (guì 桂), and a range of plant-based and animal-derived substances. Recipes include preparations taken orally in wine, topical pastes (fù 傅), and fumigation. Several procedures address specific clinical concerns: staunching blood loss (止血出者), preventing scarring (令傷毋般), treating metal-weapon injuries (金傷者), and managing wound infection. A notable feature is the presence of zhòu 祝 — incantatory formulae to be recited while treating wounds: “For a man, it will dry up; for a woman, it will ferment” (男子竭，女子酨), accompanied by ritual gestures such as drawing lines on the ground. This interweaving of empirical pharmacy and ritual healing is characteristic of early Chinese medicine broadly and is one of the most discussed features of the Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng in modern scholarship.

The sections immediately following Zhū Shāng in the Kanripo text address:

  • Shāng Jìng 傷痙: tetanus arising from wound contamination, treated with heated salt compresses and plum-decoction drinks;
  • Yīng’ér Suǒ Jìng 嬰兒索痙: neonatal tetanic convulsions, attributed to prolonged exposure to damp ground at birth, treated with heated poultices;
  • Yīng’ér Bìng Jiān 嬰兒病間: infantile epilepsy, treated with a decoction-bath using dried toad excrement;
  • Yīng’ér Chì 嬰兒瘛: infantile convulsions, treated with a combined incantation-and-stick ritual (zhòu formula plus spatula-waving);
  • Kuáng Quǎn Niè Rén 狂犬齧人: rabies/mad-dog bite, treated with topical applications of ground stone, charcoal-ash preparations, and an oral draft mixing lǐ 礜 (arsenical mineral) and tuó mò 橐莫 in vinegar;
  • Quǎn Shì Rén 犬筮人: general dog-bite wound management, using earthworm excrement (qiū yǐn shǐ 丘引矢) mixed with earth and vinegar;
  • Cháo Zhě 巢者 (skin lesion/abscess) and Xī Xià 夕下 (possibly a skin condition), treated with plant-based pastes and decoctions;
  • Dú Wū Yù 毒烏豙 (aconite poisoning), treated with roasted preparations and decoctions including iron-water;
  • Zhì 𤼚 (haemorrhoids), treated with salt, white mugwort, and ritual incantation;
  • Zhí Shí 蛭食 (leech infestation of skin on shins and thighs), treated with steamed millet and grain;
  • Yuán 蚖 (snakebite), treated with orchid-based wine preparations, wax-seal dressings, and aconite.

Textual character. The Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng is notable for the great heterogeneity of its recipes: many are brief one-line formulae; others are extended procedures running to a dozen or more steps, with explicit notes on timing, dosage, and the sequence of oral vs. topical application. Many recipes are marked with evaluative comments: 令 (“effective”) or 嘗試 (“tested” / “verified by trial”) — indicating a tradition of empirical testing. The text also records instances of doubling: some recipes appear in more than one section in slightly variant form, suggesting a compilation drawn from multiple textual antecedents rather than a unified composition.

Significance. The Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng is the oldest large-scale Chinese medical compilation known. Unlike the Zú Bì Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng KR2p0170, which reflects a theoretical framework of vessels and qi, the Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng is primarily practical in orientation — a handbook of recipes for recognizable clinical conditions, closer in spirit to the Shén Nóng Běncǎo Jīng 神農本草經 than to the Nèijīng 內經. Its publication in 1979–1985 fundamentally transformed understanding of the diversity and antiquity of early Chinese medical practice.

Dating. The text was copied before the tomb was sealed in 168 BCE. The underlying tradition appears to be Warring States in origin, probably late third or early second century BCE or earlier, though some recipes may represent earlier layers. notBefore -300 and notAfter -168 represent the plausible compositional window.

Translations and research

  • 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組. 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》[肆]. 文物出版社, 1985. — Critical edition of all medical texts.
  • Harper, Donald J. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Complete English translation of the Wǔshíèr Bìng Fāng with extensive commentary; remains the definitive Western-language scholarly resource.
  • Cullen, Christopher. “Yi’an (case statements): The Origins of a Genre of Chinese Medical Literature.” In E. Hsu, ed., Innovation in Chinese Medicine. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  • Unschuld, Paul U. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press, 1985.
  • Lo, Vivienne and Christopher Cullen, eds. Medieval Chinese Medicine: The Dunhuang Medical Manuscripts. RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. — Comparative reference for manuscript medical traditions.
  • 周一謀、蕭佐桃. 《馬王堆醫書考注》. 天津科學技術出版社, 1988. — Detailed Chinese-language commentary and explication.

Other points of interest

The Zhū Shāng section offers the earliest direct evidence in Chinese sources for the clinical management of traumatic injuries under military or civilian conditions, including what appear to be practical field-medicine techniques for stopping bleeding and preventing wound infection. The ritual incantations (zhòu 祝) embedded in otherwise empirical procedures — including the formula 男子竭，女子酨 (“for a man it dries up, for a woman it ferments”), accompanied by drawing lines in the dirt — illustrate the seamless coexistence of magic and medicine in early Chinese healing, a coexistence that has been much discussed in the history of Chinese medicine. The sections on rabies (treated in part with arsenical mineral compounds) and on infantile convulsions (treated with toad-excrement baths and incantation-stick rituals) demonstrate the range and eclecticism of early Chinese therapeutic practice.

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