Jiēnüè lùn shū 痎瘧論疏
An Annotated Discourse on the Periodic Malaria Diseases by 盧之頤 (Lú Zhīyí, zì Zǐyóu, late 明 / early 清)
About the work
A specialist late-Míng commentary on the Sùwèn’s “Nüè lùn” 瘧論 and “Cì nüè” 刺瘧 chapters, in 1 juan, addressing the jiē 痎 / nüè 瘧 (periodic-malaria) diseases — distinct fevers with regular daily, alternate-day, or multi-day cyclical pattern. Lú’s principal doctrinal positions:
- The yángyīn polarity: nüè belongs to yáng (because it is hot-fever-prone); jiē belongs to yīn (because it is cold-shivering-prone);
- The day-cycle reflects yīnyáng: daily-occurring belongs to yáng; alternate-day-or-multi-day belongs to yīn;
- The four sub-categories are mutually inclusive: wēn (warm), hán (cold), dān (single-yáng), pìn (cold-yīn) — all subsumable under the jiēnüè general category;
- The principal prescriptions follow Wáng Kěntáng’s Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng (KR3e0078).
The work is concise (1 juan) but provides — per the SKQS editors — a complete account of malarial-disease treatment principles. Lú’s other works include the Běncǎo chéngyǎ bàn jì (KR3e0089, 10 juan, also in the SKQS).
Tiyao
Jiēnüè lùn shū, 1 juan, by Lú Zhīyí of the Míng. Zhīyí’s zì was Zǐyóu, of Qiántáng. The book discusses jiēnüè symptom-and-treatment, on emptiness-fullness-cold-heat (the four), most thoroughly. Sufficient to elucidate the subtle meaning of the Sùwèn “Nüè lùn” and “Cì nüè fǎ” chapters.
The general thesis: Nüè belongs to yáng, jiē belongs to yīn; daily occurrence belongs to yáng, alternate-day or multi-day occurrence belongs to yīn; and the various names wēn, hán, dān, pìn — all can be subsumed under the jiēnüè general category. The principal prescriptions largely follow Wáng Kěntáng’s Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng; the other listed prescriptions are also mostly concise-and-apt.
Although the book is only 1 juan, the method of treating nüè is substantially complete in it.
Háng Shìjùn’s Dàogǔtáng jí has a small biography (xiǎo zhuàn) of Zhīyí, which says that he had originally composed the Jīnguì yàoluè móxiàng 金匱要略模象, which was burned by his father; that he subsequently composed the Běncǎo chéngyǎ bàn jì, which now circulates; and later composed the Mōsuǒ Jīnguì in 9 juan, plus the Shānghán jīnbì chāo and Yī nán xī yí — these three works no longer have transmitted recensions. Only [Háng’s biography] does not mention this book — perhaps when Háng wrote the biography he had not seen this base copy and accordingly omitted [it]?
(Respectfully verified, 10th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1620–1644, the broad late-Míng period during which Lú Zhīyí was active. The work cannot be precisely dated; it predates Lú’s Běncǎo chéngyǎ bàn jì but the relative chronology is uncertain.
The work’s significance:
(a) The principal late-Míng specialist nüè (malaria) treatise: at 1 juan, the work is concise but doctrinally complete. The yángyīn polarity and the daily-vs-alternate-day cyclic-correlation provide a coherent diagnostic-therapeutic framework for the malaria-class disease.
(b) The classical-textual exegesis of Sùwèn’s “Nüè lùn” and “Cì nüè” chapters: Lú’s work offers a focused commentary on the foundational Nèijīng discussion of malaria-class diseases. The exegesis is part of the broader late-Míng / early-Qīng commitment to grounding clinical doctrine in classical-textual reasoning.
(c) The Wáng Kěntáng / Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng prescriptive line: Lú’s principal prescriptions follow Wáng Kěntáng’s late-Míng comprehensive medical encyclopedia (KR3e0078) — a useful witness to the spread of Wáng’s reference work as a late-Míng prescriptive standard.
(d) The Lú Zhīyí corpus partial recovery: the catalog meta retains 廬之頤 (with a transcriptional slip — the correct surname is 盧 not 廬). The Lú corpus consists of: Bàn jì (transmitted, KR3e0089), this Jiēnüè lùn shū (transmitted, KR3e0088), and three lost works (Mōsuǒ Jīnguì, Shānghán jīnbì chāo, Yī nán xī yí). The two surviving works represent about half of his medical œuvre.
(e) The father-burns-son’s-manuscript anecdote: Háng Shìjùn’s biography preserves the dramatic narrative of Lú’s father burning Lú’s Jīnguì yàoluè móxiàng — presumably out of disapproval of his son’s medical (rather than Confucian-scholarly) career. The narrative is one of the more vivid late-Míng family-conflict-over-medicine stories.
The catalog title is correctly given as 痎瘧論疏 (Jiēnüè lùn shū); only the surname (廬 vs. 盧) is in the catalog as a transcriptional slip.
The catalog meta dynasty 明 is correct.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western translation of this specific work.
- Hanson, Marta. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China, Abingdon: Routledge, 2011 (treats the late-Míng / early-Qīng nüè / malaria literature).
- Hilary Smith, Forgotten Disease: Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017 (discusses the jiē-nüè problem in Chinese medical history).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990.
Other points of interest
The Chinese jiēnüè (periodic malaria) category — covering daily-tertian-quartan fever-cycles — is traditionally one of the more important specialist categories in Chinese clinical medicine, given the broad geographic distribution of malaria in pre-modern southern and southwestern China. The category’s modern reception is significant: the discovery of artemisinin (青蒿素, derived from qīnghāo / Artemisia annua) by Tu Youyou in the 1970s — leading to her 2015 Nobel Prize — drew on the Chinese nüè-treatment tradition, particularly the Zhǒuhòu bèijí fāng (cf. KR3e0010).