Shānghán lèifāng 傷寒類方
The Cold-Damage Prescriptions Categorically Arranged by 徐大椿 (Xú Dàchūn, zì Língtāi, hào Huíxī lǎorén, 1693–1771, 清)
About the work
Xú Dàchūn’s reorganization of Zhāng Jī’s Shānghán lùn by prescription-type rather than by the conventional channel-or-syndrome organization. The work groups together all prescriptions derived from a base prescription — e.g., the Guìzhī tāng category includes 19 prescriptions: Guìzhī tāng, Guìzhī jiā fùzǐ tāng, Guìzhī jiā guì tāng, Guìzhī qù sháoyào tāng, Guìzhī qù sháoyào jiā fùzǐ tāng, Guìzhī jiā hòupò xìngrén tāng, Xiǎo jiànzhōng tāng, Guìzhī jiā sháoyào shēngjiāng rénshēn xīnjiā tāng, Guìzhī gāncǎo tāng, Fúlíng guìzhī gāncǎo dàzǎo tāng, Guìzhī máhuáng gèbàn tāng, Guìzhī èr máhuáng yī tāng, etc. The categorical-by-prescription organization makes the Shānghán lùn more accessible for clinical-prescription study, complementing the conventional channel-by-channel organization. The work is one of the more clinically useful Qīng-period reorganizations of the Shānghán canon.
Tiyao
[The SKQS tíyào is preserved at Kyoto Zinbun 0214108. The local source 000 file shows only the table of contents.]
The work organizes Zhāng Jī’s prescriptions into categories, with each base-prescription as the head and its variants gathered beneath. This is one of the more clinically useful reorganizations of the Shānghán lùn’s prescription material.
Abstract
Composition window: 1759/1759, the date of Xú’s preface.
The work’s significance:
(a) The categorical-by-prescription reorganization: a methodological innovation in Shānghán studies. Where conventional Shānghán literature organizes by channel-disease (Tàiyáng, Yángmíng, etc.) or by symptom-pattern, Xú’s prescription-categorical organization allows clinical study by base-prescription-and-variants — useful for prescription-formulation reasoning.
(b) Clinical-pedagogical accessibility: the work serves as a quick-reference for the relations among related prescriptions, allowing the practitioner to quickly understand the scope of jiājiǎn (additions-and-subtractions) variants from any given base.
(c) Part of Xú’s Shānghán-philological project: alongside Xú’s other Shānghán-related works, the Lèifāng contributes to the comprehensive Qīng-period systematic reorganization of the cold-damage canon.
The catalog meta dynasty 清 is correct.
Translations and research
- See the 徐大椿 person note.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990.