Lǚshè bèiyào fāng 旅舍備要方
Essential Prescriptions for the Traveler’s Lodging by 董汲 (Dǒng Jí, zì Jízhī, fl. 1078–1094, of Dōngpíng, 宋)
About the work
A specialist Sòng-period traveler’s emergency formulary in one juan, compiled by Dǒng Jí — author also of the KR3e0022 Jiǎoqì zhìfǎ zǒngyào — for use when professional medical care is unavailable. The work originally contained over 100 prescriptions in 12 categorical gates; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery preserves about 50, with several gates (chùhán 觸寒, xīntòng 心痛, jué 厥, fēng 風, xiáncháo 涎潮 etc.) preserved only in the table-of-contents but with no prescription text. The compendium is unusually candid about a special category of medical emergency — the traveler far from a physician, with limited resources — and the prescriptions are correspondingly simple in formulation, drawing on widely-available materials. Mèng Zhèn 孟震’s preface and Dǒng’s own preface explain the practical motivation.
Tiyao
Lǚshè bèiyào fāng, one juan, by Dǒng Jí of the Sòng. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records the Xiǎo’ér bānzhěn lùn and the Jiǎoqì zhìfǎ but not this work; the Sòng yìwén zhì, however, lists it with the same juan-count, so Chén Zhènsūn presumably did not see it. Jí, having found that travelers fall ill suddenly far from medical attention, gathered some hundred-odd tested-effective prescriptions. Among them, the prescriptions for centipedes-in-the-ear (yóuyán rù ěr 蚰蜒入耳) and for medicine-poisoning (zhōng yào dú 中藥毒) are particularly serious-and-urgent, but the medicines used are extremely simple. The five prescriptions for mixed-injury are little seen in old sources and are now rarely transmitted; particularly remarkable. These are what the ancients called specialist secret-formulae: applied, they are immediately efficacious; but ask after their underlying principle and even Hé and Biǎn [the Hàn physicians] could not have explained them. Such is medicine.
The Xiǎo bànxià tāng 小半夏湯 and Wǔlíng sǎn 五苓散 prescriptions are originally Zhāng Jī’s. The present text uses Bànxià tāng for damp-phlegm, retaining the original logic; Wǔlíng sǎn in its original is for cold-damage with sweat-disordered post-syndrome and water-retention disease, but in the present text it is cited as a general diuretic — a flexible adaptation, much as Liú Wánsù’s Yìyuán sǎn 益元散 (originally for cold-damage with mixed inner-and-outer pattern) was later adapted to summer-heat conditions. The treatment for sun-stroke seems to be the prototype of Lǐ Gǎo’s later Qīngshǔ yìqì tāng 清暑益氣湯. The Wúbǐ xiāngrú sǎn 無比香薷散 differs slightly from the later Júfāng recension — both are based on an older prescription with adjustments. Note: the work says it treats double-leg-cramping pain but omits the principal ingredient mùguā 木瓜 (papaya, the active leg-cramp remedy) — the reason for this is not understood.
The pediatric chapter generally agrees with Qián Yǐ’s contemporary Xiǎo’ér yàozhèng zhíjué 小兒藥證直訣, except that for tender-bowelled children many strong drugs (talc-powder nìfěn 膩粉, cinnabar 朱砂) are prescribed. The ancients had stronger constitutions and could take such things without harm; later generations should not generalize from this.
The original was long lost. We have gathered the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments and arranged them: nearly fifty prescriptions, divided as before into twelve categories. The conditions chùhán xīntòng, jué, fēngxián cháo and similar — preserved in the table of contents but without text — cannot be supplied, and so are left with their original lacunae.
(Respectfully verified, 9th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1078–1094, the same period as Dǒng Jí’s other works. The work belongs to the Sòng-period bèijí 備急 (emergency formulary) genre — alongside Gé Hóng’s Zhǒuhòu bèijí fāng (KR3e0010) — but specialized for the traveler’s situation rather than the rural-medicine context of Gé Hóng’s work. The traveler’s-lodging context is the work’s distinctive feature: prescriptions assume neither the traveler’s pharmacy nor specialist medical advice, and prefer single-ingredient or small-formula treatments using widely-procurable materials.
The SKQS tíyào’s comparative philological observations — on the adaptive use of Wǔlíng sǎn, on the prototype-relation to Lǐ Gǎo’s Qīngshǔ yìqì tāng, on the Wúbǐ xiāngrú sǎn’s differences from the later Júfāng recension — locate Dǒng’s work as a lateral channel through which Hàn-era prescriptions reached Lǐ Gǎo’s JīnYuán synthesis. The pediatric section is broadly contemporary with Qián Yǐ’s foundational Xiǎo’ér yàozhèng zhíjué and demonstrates that the dose-adjustment caution of later Chinese pediatrics is a post-Sòng innovation: Sòng-era physicians used adult-strength medications even for children when emergency required.
The mention of Mèng Zhèn 孟震 in the original preface — preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn fragments — places Dǒng’s network in the Northern-Sòng learned-physician circle.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western secondary literature on this specific work.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Lǚ-shè bèi-yào fāng and the Yǒnglè recovery).
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (broader Sòng emergency-medicine context).
Other points of interest
The traveler’s-emergency-formulary genre is poorly attested in Chinese medical literature — most surviving works are either domestic-medical (Gé Hóng) or institutional (the imperially-commissioned compendia). Dǒng’s specifically traveler-oriented compendium is one of the few witnesses to the practical medical concerns of mobile Sòng-period professionals: officials traveling between postings, merchants on long routes, and so on. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery has restored about half of the original; the missing categories (cold-touch heart-pain, jué, wind, xiáncháo) cannot be reconstructed.
The Wǔlíng sǎn adaptive-use observation by the SKQS editors is one of their more telling philological remarks: Dǒng’s flexible re-application of a Zhāng Jī cold-damage prescription as a general diuretic anticipates the SòngYuán medical revolution’s willingness to extend Hàn prescriptions beyond their original syndrome-context.