Quánshēng zhǐmí fāng 全生指迷方
Prescriptions Pointing the Way Through the Maze, Preserving All Lives by 王貺 (Wáng Kuàng, zì Zǐhēng, fl. Xuānhé reign, 1119–1125, of Kǎochéng, 北宋)
About the work
A Northern-Sòng clinical formulary, in the SKQS reorganization 4 juan / 21 categorical gates (the Sòng yìwén zhì records 3 juan), recovered by the SKQS editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. Wáng Kuàng’s distinctive editorial choice: in contrast to the standard prescription-book format (which simply lists “such-and-such decoction or pill is principal for such-and-such disease, with the herbs in the following grams”), Wáng prefaces each symptom-pattern with a discussion of disease-source (病源論), so that the reader has a theoretical framework for understanding the prescription’s logic. The Mài lùn and Biàn mài fǎ chapters at the head of the work expound the three-position-and-nine-indications pulse-doctrine and the integration of pulse with symptom-and-prescription, with particular attention to pulse-symptom mismatch cases. Wú Mǐn 吳敏’s preface — preserved in the WYG print — documents the work’s prefatorial provenance (Wú had been a court historian who personally received the work from Wáng during a critical illness, and credits it with saving his life).
Tiyao
Quánshēng zhǐmí fāng, four juan, by Wáng Kuàng of the Sòng. According to Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí: “Kuàng, zì Zǐhēng, was a man of Kǎochéng; son-in-law of the famous physician Sòng Yìshū 宋毅叔. In the Xuānhé period he gained imperial favor through medicine and was promoted to Cháoqǐng dàfū.” This book is given as 3 juan in the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì, and has long been without independent transmission; therefore physicians have rarely cited it, and some do not even know its name. We have now collected from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — though what we recover may not perfectly match the original, the broad outline is essentially preserved.
Prescription works typically simply give “this decoction” or “this pill” as the principal therapy for “this disease”, with detailed zhūliǎng 銖兩 (gram-and-tenth-of-an-ounce) measures of the materia medica. Only Wáng Kuàng’s book here, before each symptom-pattern, not only describes the disease’s manifestation but also discusses its source — giving the reader a theoretical anchor and making application easier. The Mài lùn and Biàn mài fǎ chapters and their entries are all clear and lucid: the three-positions-and-nine-indications pulse-form, the symptom-and-pattern transformation phenomena, and the cases where pulse and disease are corresponding-or-not-corresponding — none is undiscussed. The discrimination of doubtful-and-superficially-similar conditions, and the parsing of the subtle, are equally illuminating: the work is a pivotal-and-essential reading for the diagnostic-clinic.
We have respectfully revised and re-arranged into 21 categories, organized by class, with the Mài lùn chapters at the head; because the page-count is somewhat long, we divided it into 4 juan, no longer matching the original 3 juan.
(Respectfully verified, 9th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1119–1125, the Xuānhé reign during which Wáng Kuàng was active at court. The original 3-juan structure was redivided into 4 juan during the SKQS recovery and reorganization.
The work’s significance: (a) the integration of disease-aetiology with prescription — a pedagogic innovation in Sòng clinical-formulary writing, intermediate between the pure-pathology Bìngyuán-line tradition (which gives no prescriptions) and the pure-prescription Tàipíng shènghuì fāng tradition (which gives no theoretical anchoring); (b) the systematic pulse-doctrine treatment of the Mài lùn and Biàn mài fǎ chapters, which the SKQS editors single out as “pivotal-and-essential reading for the diagnostic-clinic”; (c) the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery, which restores from near-oblivion a clinically important Sòng work cited but not cited (because not consulted) in later SòngYuánMíng medical bibliography.
The Wú Mǐn preface, preserved in the WYG print, narrates the work’s reception in the high Northern-Sòng court: Wú, a Hàn-lín-academy historian, personally received the manuscript from Wáng during a critical illness; the book travelled with Wú through his subsequent banishment to Sānbā 三巴 and Bǎiyuè 百粤; on Wú’s eventual return north he carried the book back, and undertook the prefatorial introduction.
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 Quán-shēng zhǐ-mí fāng and the Yǒnglè recovery).
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (broader Sòng clinical-formulary context).
Other points of interest
The Wú Mǐn preface — recording the personal medical encounter that led to the work’s preservation — is one of the more affecting documents of Sòng-period physician-patient relationship. Wú’s testimony that “reading my book, the right paragraph and the right prescription will appear; even those who do not know the art can apply it from the diagram and cure the disease” is unusually generous to a contemporary work and helps to confirm the work’s clinical significance.
The integration of pulse-doctrine with prescription-and-symptom — Wáng’s editorial choice — anticipates the more comprehensive integration in the JīnYuán medical revolution, where Liú Wánsù 劉完素, Zhāng Yuánsù 張元素, Lǐ Gǎo 李杲, and Zhū Zhènhēng 朱震亨 would all rebuild clinical reasoning around pulse-cum-symptom analysis. Wáng’s Quánshēng zhǐmí is one of the late-Northern-Sòng prefigurations of that synthesis.