Pǔjì fāng 普濟方
Universal-Relief Prescriptions by 朱橚 (Zhū Sù, the Zhōu Dìngwáng, 1361–1425, 明) — with collaboration of Jiàoshòu Téng Shuò 滕碩 and Chángshǐ Liú Chún 劉醇
About the work
The most comprehensive medical formulary in any medical tradition before modern times, in 426 juan with an appended 1-juan Zhíyīn lüè 直音略 (phonetic gloss). Compiled in the early Míng (likely completed by 1406, before its citation in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn compilation of 1408) by the imperial Prince Zhū Sù — the 5th son of the Míng founding emperor — at his princely seat in Kāifēng. The work contains:
- 1,960 essays (lùn 論);
- 2,175 categories (lèi 類);
- 778 methods (fǎ 法);
- 61,739 prescriptions (fāng 方);
- 239 illustrations (tú 圖).
The work systematically integrates the entire pre-Míng Chinese medical literature into a single reference, with each disease-category preserving multiple alternative prescriptions from different schools and periods. Its scope dwarfs all earlier Chinese medical compendia (the 200-juan Shèngjì zǒnglù of Sòng Huīzōng’s commission included). Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù (1593) draws extensively on the Pǔjì fāng — but Lǐ misattributes the work to Zhū Sù’s son Zhū Yǒudūn (“Zhōu Xiànwáng”), an error corrected by the SKQS editors. The Míng shǐ yìwén zhì gives the juan-count as 68 — clearly an erroneous loss of “百二” (200-something) characters from the original 426. The work was lost in independent transmission; recovered for the SKQS from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations.
Tiyao
Pǔjì fāng, 426 juan, by Zhū Sù — the Míng Zhōu Dìngwáng — descendant of the Míng Tàizǔ. The fifth son of Tàizǔ. Originally enfeoffed as Wúwáng; in Hóngwǔ 11 (1378) changed to Zhōuwáng; in Hóngwǔ 14 (1381) seated at Kāifēng; in Hóngxī yuánnián (1425) died, with posthumous title Dìng. His career is in the Míng shǐ Zhūwáng lièzhuàn. Sù was fond of learning, capable of literary composition, and concerned with the people’s affairs. He once composed the Jiùhuāng běncǎo, separately catalogued.
This book takes ancient and present prescriptions and gathers them into a compilation. Edited by Sù himself, with the Jiàoshòu Téng Shuò and Chángshǐ Liú Chún (Liú Chún also wrote the Yījīng xiǎoxué and other works) verifying it together. In all: 1,960 lùn (essays), 2,175 lèi (categories), 778 fǎ (methods), 61,739 fāng (prescriptions), 239 tú (illustrations). It can be called the great-completion of medical formulary-books.
Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù draws on its prescriptions most extensively. But Shízhēn calls it the work of “Zhōu Xiànwáng”, taking it as Sù’s son Yǒudūn’s work — an unavoidable error. The Míng shǐ yìwén zhì gives the juan-count as 68 — disagreeing with this; another error of having dropped the “百二” (200-something) characters.
The book gathers material extensively; some duplications and inconsistencies are not absent — the cluttering-and-confusion fault is not entirely absent. But medical principle is most profound: cold-cool, warm-tonifying, applied each in its proper place; deficiency-and-excess, yīn-and-yáng, also have their proper times. Common practitioners with limited experience often cling to one extreme — used in this way, error easily ensues. This book, beneath each symptom, fully lists the various prescriptions. Letting students pursue analogically, in the differences-and-overlaps-and-inflows-and-outflows of methods one can glimpse the ancients’ intent — and accordingly weigh and combine, without being bound to fixed methods. Its benefit to the medical art is great. One should not consider its abundance a fault.
(Respectfully verified, 1st month of Qiánlóng 44 [1779]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1390–1406, the period of Zhū Sù’s mature princely-scholarly activity at Kāifēng. The work cannot be precisely dated; but Zhū Sù’s princely-seat tenure begins in 1381 and the work must have been completed before its citation in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn compilation effort of 1408.
The work’s significance:
(a) The most comprehensive medical formulary in any medical tradition before modern times: at 426 juan / 1,960 essays / 2,175 categories / 778 methods / 61,739 prescriptions / 239 illustrations, the Pǔjì fāng exceeds all earlier and most subsequent Chinese medical compendia, and is on a different scale from any pre-modern Western medical compendium. The work is foundational to early-Míng Chinese medical reference practice.
(b) The princely-imperial Míng patronage of medicine: Zhū Sù as Zhōuwáng exemplifies the early-Míng princely-scholarly patronage of practical learning. His combined output — the Pǔjì fāng’s 426-juan medical encyclopedia and the Jiùhuāng běncǎo’s pioneering famine-edible-plant botany — represents one of the most ambitious princely-scholarly programs in Chinese intellectual history.
(c) The Téng Shuò / Liú Chún editorial collaboration: the SKQS editors note that Zhū Sù compiled the work himself with the verification-help of two senior princely-court medical-scholarly officials. The collaborative editorial structure of the work is one of the better-documented early-Míng imperial-medical-publication systems.
(d) The Lǐ Shízhēn misattribution and the SKQS correction: Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù attributes the work to Zhū Sù’s son Yǒudūn (“Zhōu Xiànwáng”), perpetuating an error that the SKQS editors trace and correct. The correction is methodologically sound and historically important.
(e) The “one-disease-multiple-prescriptions” pedagogy: the SKQS editors’ approving note on Zhū Sù’s editorial method — providing multiple alternative prescriptions for each symptom, allowing the student to compare and select rather than follow a single fixed method — is one of the more sophisticated medical-pedagogical positions of the early Míng. The method anticipates modern evidence-based medicine’s emphasis on multiple-treatment-option awareness.
The catalog meta dynasty 明 is correct; lifedates 1361–1425 also correct.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western translation of this immense work. The work is too large for full translation; specific prescriptions and chapters have been studied:
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Pǔ-jì fāng).
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Yīxué yǔ chuántǒng wénhuà 醫學與傳統文化, Tianjin: Bǎihuā Wényì, 2002 (chapter on early-Míng imperial-medical compendia).
- Wú Cháo-yáng 吳昭陽 et al. (eds.), Pǔ-jì fāng (modern reprint), Beijing: Rénmín Wèishēng, 1959–1965, 10 vols. The standard modern edition.
Other points of interest
The 426-juan / 61,739-prescription scale of the Pǔjì fāng is one of the most striking statistics in any cultural history: a single work containing more prescriptions than any pharmacopoeia produced anywhere in the world before the modern period. The scale reflects the Chinese commitment to comprehensive textual integration and the early-Míng princely commitment to medical learning as a serious scholarly discipline.
Zhū Sù’s Jiùhuāng běncǎo — the famine-edible-plant treatise — is, in a different sense, even more historically remarkable: it is the first systematic Chinese effort to identify and illustrate plants suitable for human consumption in famine conditions, with original botanical drawings of unprecedented accuracy. Together with the Pǔjì fāng, it represents a unique princely-philanthropic medical-and-natural-historical contribution.