Yī shuō 醫說
Tales of Medicine by 張杲 (Zhāng Gǎo, zì Jìmíng, fl. 1189, of Xīnān, 南宋)
About the work
A Southern-Sòng medical anthology in 10 juan / 47 categorical gates, gathering biographical anecdotes of physicians from antiquity through the Sòng, brief histories of the foundational medical works, descriptions of acupuncture and pulse-diagnosis, individual case-records (loosely structured), specialty-discussions, women’s-and-pediatric medicine, surgical and external-medicine cases, and a closing chapter on medical-results-and-karmic-retribution (醫功報應). Zhāng Gǎo’s pedagogic project was to reach 1000 entries — modeled on the Sòng huà jì 宋畫繼-style anecdotal chronicles — but settled on a smaller corpus of representative entries before publication. The work is the principal Sòng-period medical-anecdotal collection and a foundational source for the history of Chinese medicine: through Zhāng Gǎo’s 47-gate selection we have access to many lost source-fragments (cited from xiǎoshuō, bǐjì, regional gazetteers, religious narratives) and to the biographical record of physicians otherwise undocumented.
Tiyao
Yī shuō, 10 juan, by Zhāng Gǎo of the Sòng. Gǎo, zì Jìmíng, was a man of Xīnān. His great-uncle Zhāng Kuò 張擴 had studied medicine under 龐安時 Páng Ānshí 龐安時 and gained fame in the JīngLuò capital region; Luō Yuàn’s Èzhōu xiǎo jí contains a Zhāng Kuò biography with detailed records of his clinical successes. The book is prefaced by Luō Xū 羅頊’s preface dated Chúnxī jǐyǒu (1189), which says: “[Zhāng] Kuò transmitted to his nephew Zhāng Zǐfā; Zǐfā transmitted to his son Zhāng Yànrén; Gǎo is Yànrén’s son, inheriting the family learning, also fond of medical conversation.” Gǎo had wished to gather past-and-present medical case-records into a single book, originally with the goal of 1000 entries; this proving difficult to fill, he instead drew on his readings to produce the present compilation.
The book is divided into 47 gates: the first 7 generally introduce ancient famous physicians and medical books, acupuncture-and-moxibustion, pulse-diagnosis, and the like; next 28 categorical-disease gates; next 6 miscellaneous-discussion gates; next women’s-medicine and pediatric-medicine 2 gates; next ulcers, the Five Mortifications (五絕), numbness, and shānjiā (疝) — 3 gates; and the last is the medical-results-and-karmic-retribution gate.
In selecting material, Gǎo draws on the shuōbù (anecdotal-fiction) literature; the contents accordingly drift somewhat into the marvellous-and-supernatural. Furthermore, having recorded that the “skull-cap bone” (天靈蓋 tiānlínggài) is not to be used as a medicine, he then reprints the Chén Cángqì Běncǎo entry on “human-flesh” as a medicine — also disorderly. Yet the material gathered is so rich, the strange diseases and dangerous symptoms so resourcefully presented, that the work is amply useful for stimulating reflection. Many of the ancient specialist secret prescriptions are also preserved here. The three-generation medical lineage [of Zhāng Gǎo] gave the work a genuine source — different from that of the rumour-mongers who collect what they hear on the road.
(Respectfully verified, [no specific month/day]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1189/1189, the date of Luō Xū’s preface. The work was completed in late 1189 in Xīnān; the SKQS recension is from the Zhèjiāng Provincial Inspector’s submitted copy.
The work’s significance:
(a) The principal Sòng-period medical anecdotal-and-historical anthology: at 47 gates, the Yī shuō is the most comprehensive Sòng collection of medical anecdotes, brief biographies, and source-fragments. It is the indispensable companion to the formularies and pathology-treatises in any reconstruction of Sòng-period medical culture.
(b) The three-generation medical pedigree: Zhāng Gǎo’s lineage from Zhāng Kuò (Páng Ānshí’s disciple) through Zhāng Zǐfā and Zhāng Yànrén is one of the better-documented Sòng-period professional-medical-family transmissions, and the work’s historiographical authority is correspondingly grounded.
(c) The “medical-results-and-karmic-retribution” closing chapter: a unique Sòng-period exposition of the karmic-religious framing of medical practice, in which physicians’ good or bad clinical results are correlated with the moral-religious quality of their conduct. The chapter is one of the foundational Sòng documents for the religiously-grounded medical ethics that became the backbone of late-imperial professional-medical self-understanding.
(d) The acceptance of supernatural / xiǎoshuō material: the SKQS editors’ mild criticism of Zhāng Gǎo’s “drifting into the marvellous-and-supernatural” is a useful diagnostic of the work’s character. Sòng medical anecdotal anthology was not strictly empirical in the modern sense; the Yī shuō draws on the full range of Sòng narrative literature, including ghost-encounter reports and miraculous-cure traditions, alongside more sober clinical anecdote.
The “human-flesh medicine” (人肉) entry — a pharmacological practice grounded in Chén Cángqì’s Běncǎo shíyí (Táng) and persisting in folk medicine through the Qīng — is one of the more sociologically interesting entries in the work, documenting both the Sòng acceptance of cannibalism-as-medicine and Zhāng Gǎo’s editorial ambivalence (he warns against the tiānlínggài but reprints the human-flesh entry).
Translations and research
- No substantial Western secondary literature on this specific work.
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (treats the Yī shuō in the Sòng medical-historical context).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Yī shuō).
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Yīxué yǔ chuántǒng wénhuà 醫學與傳統文化, Tianjin: Bǎihuā Wényì, 2002 (chapter on Sòng medical historiography).
- Furth, Charlotte, Judith T. Zeitlin, and Ping-chen Hsiung (eds.), Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007 (treats the Yī shuō alongside KR3e0032’s Běn-shì fāng in the case-writing genre context).
Other points of interest
The 47-gate structure of the Yī shuō is one of the more elaborate organizational schemes in Sòng medical literature, allowing systematic coverage from physician-biography through specialty-medicine to medical-ethics. The structure anticipates the YuánMíng comprehensive medical encyclopedias.
The Zhāng family’s three-generation medical-lineage — Zhāng Kuò → Zhāng Zǐfā → Zhāng Yànrén → Zhāng Gǎo, with Zhāng Kuò himself a disciple of Páng Ānshí — is one of the better-documented Sòng professional-medical genealogies and a valuable source for the social history of Chinese medical practice.