Yùnqì zhèngzhì gējué 運氣證治歌訣
Rhymed Tenets on Syndrome-Differentiation and Treatment by Climatic Cycle by 王旭高 (Wáng Xùgāo, 1798–1862, 清) — author
About the work
The Yùnqì zhèngzhì gējué in one juan is a late-Qīng systematic re-exposition of the Sòng physician 陳言 Chén Wúzé’s (Chén Yán, 1131–1189) Sānyīn jí yī bìng zhèng fāng lùn 三因極一病證方論 yùnqì prescriptions, recast in rhymed mnemonic form by Wáng Xùgāo 王旭高 (zì Xùzhāi 旭齋, hào Tuìsī jūshì 退思居士) of Wúxī 無錫 in Jiāngsū, an eminent mid-19th-c. clinical physician. Wáng arranges the sixty Chén Wúzé yùnqì prescriptions (六十年甲子) under a unifying scheme — each climatic year producing a typical syndrome treated by the prescription for the year of the rival phase — and adds critical remarks (“旭高按”) on the proper limits of yùnqì-based prognosis.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw source (KR3ea019_000.txt) opens with a zǒnglùn 總論 in which Wáng quotes Chén Wúzé’s introduction of his yùnqì prescriptions in the Sānyīn fāng, then comments: the principle is sound — the Nèijīng’s six excessive influences (六淫) produce typical syndromes that respond to typical formulae — but the absurd vulgar version, in which every year inevitably produces a single specified disease treated by a single specified prescription, is “the pipe-dream of a fool” (癡人說夢矣). The text then enumerates the sixty prescriptions: 苓朮湯 (壬子-pp. years, excess wood, spleen-earth damaged), and so on. Wáng’s annotations preserve a rare clinically-realistic late-Qīng engagement with the yùnqì doctrine, neither dismissive nor credulous.
Abstract
Wáng Xùgāo was the senior clinical physician of mid-Qīng Wúxī and is principal author of the Wáng Xùgāo yīshū liù zhǒng 王旭高醫書六種 (1862, an early-Republican-era posthumous collection of six small treatises). Best known for his Xiè dū shū 西谿書屋夜話錄 on disorders of the liver, his other works include Yùnqì zhèngzhì gējué (this work), Yīfāng zhèngzōng 醫方證宗, Wáng Xùgāo yī’àn 王旭高醫案 (case records), and short treatises on environmental medicine. Stylistically he stands close to the wēnbìng 溫病 (warm-disease) school of 葉桂 Yè Tiānshì and 薛雪 Xuē Xuě (KR3ea041) and is an important transmitter of Sūzhōu / Wúxī clinical orthodoxy to the early Republican generation through his disciple Fāng Yàoyuán 方耀庭.
Translations and research
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006 (Eastland Press, 2007) — chap. on the MèngHé / Wúxī clinical lineage that produced Wáng Xùgāo.
- Wáng Xùgāo yīshū liù zhǒng 王旭高醫書六種, modern critical edition (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù, 1965).