Cháoshì zhū bìng yuánhòu zǒnglùn 巢氏諸病源候總論
Master Cháo’s General Treatise on the Origins and Symptoms of the Various Diseases by 巢元方 (Cháo Yuánfāng, Tàiyī bóshì, fl. 605–615, 隋) — chief editor under imperial commission
About the work
The foundational Chinese systematic pathology treatise, also known as the Zhū bìng yuánhòu lùn 諸病源候論. Compiled by imperial commission under Suí Yángdì (the Sòng Yùhǎi 玉海 records the Suí Dàyè period as the period of compilation), it organizes the aetiology (yuán 源) and symptom-pattern (hòu 候) of every disease then known into 67 mén (categorical gates) and 1,720 individual disquisitions across fifty juan, presenting only disease-source and symptom-discussion — no prescriptions whatsoever, in deliberate emulation of the SùwènLíngshūNán jīng tradition. Many of the discussions are appended with daoyin 導引 (guided breathing-and-stretching) instructions, almost certainly drawing on the lost Suí Dǎoyǐn tú 導引圖 in three juan. The work was the standard pathology reference of the Táng Tài yī shǔ 太醫署 medical academy and of the Sòng校正醫書局; the Sòng instruction-and-examination of medical students (太平興國 reign, 976–984) used it as the base text, and every gate of the imperial Tàipíng shènghuì fāng 太平聖惠方 (992) opens with a citation from it. Wáng Tāo’s 王燾 Wàitái mìyào 外臺秘要 (752) draws extensively on it.
Tiyao
Cháoshì zhū bìng yuánhòu lùn, fifty juan, by Cháo Yuánfāng et al., Tàiyī bóshì of the Suí Dàyè period, by imperial commission. Examining the Suí shū jīngjí zhì, one finds a Zhū bìng yuánhòu lùn in five juan with one juan of contents, by Wú Jǐngxián 吳景賢; the Jiù Tángshū jīngjí zhì records a Zhū bìng yuánhòu lùn in fifty juan, by Wú Jǐng 吳景; neither mentions Cháo. The Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì records Cháo Yuánfāng’s Cháoshì zhū bìng yuánhòu lùn in fifty juan, with no Wú work. Only the Xīn Tángshū yìwén zhì lists both — same title, same juan-count — which cannot be a genuine duplication. We suspect the work was an official document, with Yuánfāng and [Wú] Jǐng each contributing — one as supervising compiler (監修), one as chief editor (編撰) — and so listed sometimes under one name, sometimes under the other, but the same single work. The Xīn Tángshū simply duplicated by accident. The Dúshū zhì of Cháo Gōngwǔ describes the work as “by Cháo Yuánfāng of the Suí et al.” — sufficient evidence that the old recension was attributed to multiple compilers. Therefore the Suí zhì’s “Wú Jǐngxián” (賢) is a textual error for “監” [in the title 監修, by graphic confusion of 賢 and 監]; and the “five juan” should read “fifty juan”, with the “十” character dropped — for if there were only five juan, the contents listing would not require a separate juan.
The present text is the Míng Wāng Jìchuān 汪濟川 / Fāng Kuàng 方鑛 collated edition. At its head is the preface composed by imperial commission by Sòng Shòu 宋綬, dated to Tiānshèng 4.10.12 yǐyǒu (1026): the Yùhǎi records that on this date Jí-xián校理 Cháo Zōngquè 晁宗慤 and Wáng Jǔzhèng 王舉正 were appointed to collate the Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn, Nán jīng, and Cháoshì bìngyuán hòulùn; on the yǐwèi day of the 4th month of Tiānshèng 5 (1027), the imperial Directorate of Education was ordered to print and circulate them, with Hànlín scholar Sòng Shòu commissioned to write the preface to the Bìng yuán.
The book has 67 categorical gates and 1,720 disquisitions. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí notes that Wáng Tāo’s Wàitái mìyào draws most of its discussions from this work; checking, this is borne out. Further, the sixth juan, Jiě sǎn bìng zhū hòu 解散病諸候, is written for those who have ingested cold-food powder (寒食散) — a disease only the Six Dynasties recognized; the twenty-sixth juan’s Māoguǐ bìng hòu 猫鬼病候, attested in the Běi shǐ and the Tàipíng guǎngjì, is also a disease only the Northern Zhōu and Northern Qí periods recognized. None of this is post-Táng language. There is no doubt that this is the old text.
The book discusses only disease-sources and includes no prescriptions or pharmaceutical materials, following the precedent of the Sùwèn and Nán jīng. The end of each symptom-pattern discussion often appends dǎoyǐn 導引 (guided exercise) methods, but does not name their author. Examining the Suí zhì, one finds a Dǎoyǐn tú 導引圖 in three juan, with an interlinear note that they cover standing, sitting, and lying; perhaps it was these that were edited in. The Dúshū zhì says: “The Sòng dynasty’s old practice was to use this book to test medical students; in the Tàipíng xìngguó period (976–984), the imperial Tàipíng shènghuì fāng opens each gate with a citation from this book.” Perhaps, then, since they were not far from antiquity, much of the Hàn-period prescriptive and discursive material was still extant, and the editors brought together its best in collaborative discussion — making its language deep, precise, and refined, beyond what later writers could attain. Apart from the Nèijīng-line down through Zhāng Jī, Wáng Shūhé, and Gé Hóng, this is the oldest [extant medical text]; its essentials are equally a doctrinal bridge for clinical reasoning.
Wáng Wěi’s 王褘 Qīngyán cónglù 青巖叢錄 once criticized it as recognizing only wind, cold, and dampness without [the doctrine of] dryness — a shallow gap. But the disease-mechanism’s countless transformations are themselves things later writers have clarified; one cannot fault the book on a single chapter.
(Respectfully verified, 1st month of Qiánlóng 44 [1779]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
The composition window is set at 605–615, covering the Suí Dàyè reign during which Yángdì commissioned the work. The Sòng Tiānshèng-period (1026–1027) imperial collation under Sòng Shòu re-edited the text into the form transmitted today; the SBCK and SKQS recensions are descendants of that Sòng collation. The 67-gate / 1,720-disquisition structure covers the entire range of Suí-period clinical knowledge, from internal medicine and pediatrics through women’s medicine, surgery, dermatology, and infectious disease. As the Sìkù tíyào observes, the work uniquely preserves Six-Dynasties period diseases (the hánshí sǎn 寒食散 cold-food-powder ingestion syndrome, the māoguǐ 猫鬼 disease) that vanished from the medical record after the Táng — a marker of the Suí-period date of composition.
The non-prescription character of the work is its principal structural innovation: by following the SùwènLíngshūNán jīng tradition of pure pathological reasoning, the Bìngyuán establishes pathology as a discipline distinct from prescriptive therapeutics. The Sòng校正醫書局 made it a foundational reference, and through Wáng Tāo’s Wàitái mìyào (752) — which essentially appends prescriptions to the Bìngyuán’s aetiological framework — the work became the doctrinal backbone of TángSòng clinical medicine.
The 導引 sections appended to many disquisitions preserve the only systematic Suí-period record of the daoyin tradition between Tao Hongjing’s Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù 養性延命錄 and the late-medieval Yǎngshēng compendia. They are an essential resource for the history of Chinese physical-cultivation practice.
Translations and research
- Despeux, Catherine. Trois traités d’expectoration. Paris: Trédaniel, 1985 — and other works treating the Bìng-yuán.
- Despeux, Catherine and Frédéric Obringer (eds.). La maladie dans la Chine médiévale: la toux. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997. Foundational French-language study of Suí-Táng pathology, drawing on the Bìng-yuán.
- Hsu, Elisabeth (ed.). Innovation in Chinese Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 (esp. Despeux on the Bìng-yuán and Suí-Táng pathology).
- Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒, Yashiro shokan 八千卷樓 series — including a full Japanese translation of the Zhū bìng yuán-hòu lùn by various scholars, in the Yochū shoshohyū 譯註諸病源候論 published by the Tōyō Igaku Kenkyūkai.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Cháo-shì zhū bìng yuán-hòu lùn xīn jiào 巢氏諸病源候論新校, Beijing: Rénmín Wèishēng, 2002. Standard modern critical edition.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Yīxué yǔ chuántǒng wénhuà 醫學與傳統文化, Tianjin: Bǎihuā Wényì, 2002 (chapters on the Bìng-yuán and Suí medicine).
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009. On the Sòng校正醫書局 reception of the Bìng-yuán.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào preserves a notable philological argument — the identification of Wú Jǐng[xián] / 吳景[賢] in the Suí and Táng bibliographies with Cháo Yuánfāng’s collaborator (Wú as 監修, Cháo as 編撰), and the diagnosis of “賢” as a graphic error for “監” — that has been broadly accepted by modern scholarship. The same passage shows the SKQS editors at their characteristic philological work.
The 導引 instructions appended to many disquisitions are an unsung but unique resource for the history of Chinese body-cultivation practice. Their unidentified attribution — the Sìkù tíyào tentatively identifies them with the lost Dǎoyǐn tú 導引圖 of the Suí zhì — is one of the open problems of SuíTáng medical and yǎngshēng studies.