Zhǒuhòu bèijí fāng 肘後備急方
Prescriptions for Emergencies, To Keep Beneath the Elbow by 葛洪 (Gé Hóng, zì Zhìchuān 稚川, ca. 283–343, 晉) — original; 陶弘景 (Táo Hóngjǐng, 456–536, 梁) — supplementer; 楊用道 (Yáng Yòngdào, 金) — second supplementer
About the work
A pocket-sized clinical formulary in eight juan, originally compiled by Gé Hóng — the great Jìn alchemical-Daoist scholar — under the title Zhǒuhòu zújiù fāng 肘後卒救方 (“Prescriptions for Sudden-Emergency Rescue, To Keep Beneath the Elbow”) for distribution to remote areas where neither physicians nor pharmacies were accessible. The work avoids rare materia medica, using only easily-procurable ingredients, and gives clear acupuncture-and-moxibustion measurements (鍼灸分寸) so that an untrained user can apply the prescriptions in a crisis. Táo Hóngjǐng of Liáng supplemented Gé’s text — under the title Zhǒuhòu bǎiyī fāng 肘後百一方 — adding 101 prescriptions and reorganizing into pharmaceutical-preparation, dietary-cultivation, and external-internal-and-other-pathology categories. The Jīn-period Yáng Yòngdào further appended an additional layer drawn from Táng Shènwēi’s Zhèng lèi běncǎo 證類本草, distributed under each symptom-pattern with an explicit Fù fāng 附方 header. The transmitted SKQS edition is the Míng Jiājìng-period Lǚ Yóng 呂顒 reprint of the Yuán Wūshì 烏氏 / Duàn Chéngjǐ 段成己 print, which combines all three strata in a single base text.
Tiyao
Zhǒuhòu bèijí fāng, eight juan, originally compiled by Gé Hóng of the Jìn, first called Zhǒuhòu zújiù fāng. Táo Hóngjǐng of the Liáng supplemented its lacunae and obtained 101 [items], producing the Zhǒuhòu bǎiyī fāng. Yáng Yòngdào of the Jīn took the various prescriptions of Táng Shènwēi’s Zhèng lèi běncǎo and appended them to the Zhǒuhòu, distributing each under its symptom-pattern, producing the Fù guǎng Zhǒuhòu fāng 附廣肘後方. Then in the Yuán Shìzǔ Zhìyuán reign (1264–1294) a certain Wū obtained the manuscript from the Guō family of Píngxiāng 平鄉 and first cut blocks for it; Duàn Chéngjǐ 段成已 wrote a preface, mentioning Gé and Táo as joint authors but not Yáng Yòngdào. The present edition is the Míng Jiājìng (1522–1566) reprint by the Prefect of Xiāngyáng Lǚ Yóng 呂顒, who first placed all three prefaces — by Gé, Táo, and Yáng — at the head of the volume. In the body of the work the additions of Yáng are separately marked with the heading Fù fāng 附方; the prescriptions of Gé and Táo, however, are not distinguished from each other.
The Suí shū jīngjí zhì records Gé Hóng’s Zhǒuhòu fāng in six juan (with a Liáng-period two-juan version) and Táo Hóngjǐng’s Bǔ quē Zhǒuhòu bǎiyī fāng 補闕肘後百一方 in nine juan, [marked] lost. The Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì lists only Gé’s book and not Táo’s. So Táo’s work was already lost in the Suí period, and could not have re-emerged in the Yuán. Moreover, Táo’s original [is given as] nine juan, while the present text — including Yáng Yòngdào’s appendix — is in only eight, with篇 numbers also not matching. We suspect this work in fact never contained the Bǎiyī fāng in its entirety, and that later editors took only Hóngjǐng’s original preface and prefaced it to the work [as a token of inclusion]. The book is divided into fifty-one categories, with prescriptions but no extended discussion, and avoids hard-to-obtain materials, being concise and clear. Although it has been considerably altered by later additions and deletions, the broad meaning is precise and apt, and has not lost the original spirit of Zhìchuān (Gé Hóng).
(Respectfully verified, 9th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 280–343, the lifespan of Gé Hóng. The original Zhǒuhòu zújiù fāng is part of Gé Hóng’s substantial œuvre on practical medicine and external alchemy (composed mostly between his return from the south and his retirement to Mt. Luófú); it sits alongside the Bàopǔzǐ wài piān 抱朴子外篇 and other works as part of his classical-Confucian-and-practical-Daoist corpus, distinct from the Bàopǔzǐ nèi piān 抱朴子內篇 (which presents the alchemical-religious doctrine).
The textual stratification documented by the SKQS tíyào:
- Gé Hóng’s original (Jìn, late 3rd – mid 4th c.): Zhǒuhòu zújiù fāng, in the Suí zhì recorded as Zhǒuhòu fāng in 6 juan.
- Táo Hóngjǐng’s supplement (Liáng, ca. 500): Bǔ quē Zhǒuhòu bǎiyī fāng in 9 juan; lost by the Suí period — at least according to the Suí zhì’s “[亡]” note.
- Yáng Yòngdào’s supplement (Jīn, mid-12th c.): Fù guǎng Zhǒuhòu fāng, drawing on Táng Shènwēi’s Zhèng lèi běncǎo (1108), distributed by symptom-pattern.
- Wūshì / Duàn Chéngjǐ Yuán print (1264–1294): the first printed edition.
- Lǚ Yóng Míng Jiājìng reprint (1522–1566): the SKQS base text, with all three prefaces preserved.
The SKQS tíyào is sceptical of Táo’s true contribution, on philological grounds: the Suí zhì records Táo’s book as lost, the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì records only Gé’s work, the juan-counts do not match (8 of the present text vs. 9 of Táo’s nominal Bǎiyī fāng), and Yáng Yòngdào’s contribution is the only one with a clear textual marker (Fù fāng 附方). The editors suspect that the present text is essentially Gé + Yáng, with Táo’s name and preface attached as a token of authority.
The work is a major source for early Chinese medical practice in non-elite contexts: home medicine, traveler’s medicine, and rural medicine. The Zhǒuhòu’s prescription on the use of qīnghāo 青蒿 (sweet wormwood) for malaria — “take a handful of qīnghāo, soak in two shēng of water, twist out the juice, drink it whole” — was the textual evidence on which Tu Youyou 屠呦呦 (Nobel Prize 2015) based her isolation of artemisinin (青蒿素).
Translations and research
- Penelope Barrett, Vivienne Lo, and Eric Karchmer (eds.), in Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity and various publications. Several scholarly studies of the Zhǒu-hòu in its early-medieval context.
- Catherine Despeux, Le chemin de l’éveil illustré par le dressage du buffle dans le bouddhisme chan (and other works), Paris: Trédaniel, 1981 — and her work on Tao Hongjing more generally.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōngguó chūtǔ gǔ yīshū kǎoshì yǔ yánjiū 中國出土古醫書考釋與研究, Shànghǎi, 2015. On the Zhǒu-hòu in relation to other Hàn-Jìn formularies.
- Akahori Akira 赤堀 昭, “Chūshu hōki bō kau ki 肘後方記校記” 漢方の臨床 28, 1981. Standard Japanese collation notes.
- Zhāng Cǎnjiǎ 張燦玾 et al., Zhǒu-hòu bèi-jí fāng jiào zhù 肘後備急方校註, Beijing: Rénmín Wèishēng, 1996. Standard modern critical edition.
- Tu Youyou 屠呦呦, From Artemisia annua L. to Artemisinins: The Discovery and Development of Artemisinins and Antimalarial Agents, San Diego: Academic Press, 2017 (English version of the 青蒿素 narrative; cites the Zhǒu-hòu’s pharmacological pivot).
Other points of interest
The Tu Youyou / artemisinin story (青蒿素 isolation, leading to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) hinges on a specific reading of the Zhǒuhòu’s anti-malaria prescription: traditional pharmacology, which boiled qīnghāo, was destroying the heat-labile artemisinin; the Zhǒuhòu’s “soak in cold water, twist out the juice” (絞汁服) preserved the active compound. This is the most prominent modern-clinical use of the Zhǒuhòu and a milestone in the historical philology of Chinese pharmacology.
The transmissional opacity flagged by the SKQS editors — Gé’s and Táo’s strata not separately marked — has been partially resolved by modern collation comparing the Zhǒuhòu’s contents with citations in early-medieval and Sòng compendia. Mǎ Jìxīng’s 1996 critical edition is the principal Chinese contribution.