Nèijīng zhīyào 內經知要
Essentials Worth Knowing in the Inner Classic by 李中梓 (Lǐ Zhōngzǐ, 1588–1655, 明) — author
About the work
The Nèijīng zhīyào in two juan is a late-Míng pedagogical anthology of the Huángdì nèijīng compiled by Lǐ Zhōngzǐ 李中梓 (zì Shìcái 士材, hào Niàné 念莪), a major Sōngjiāng 松江 (modern Shànghǎi) physician of the Mìngmén school. Lǐ extracted the doctrinally essential passages of both the Sùwèn and the Língshū and organized them under eight headings — 道生 (life-cultivation), 陰陽, 色診, 脈診, 藏象, 經絡, 治則, 病能 — with his own brief commentary. The work is dated to Chóngzhēn 15 = 1642, the year of Lǐ’s posthumously-circulated original print.
Prefaces
The author’s preface (KR3ea038_000.txt) opens with the Confucian saying wéi rén zǐ zhě, bù kě yǐ bù zhī yī 為人子者，不可以不知醫 (“a son cannot be a son if he does not know medicine”), and develops a polemic against contemporary “half-knowers” (一知半解之流) and against the patriarchs of households who entrust their elders, brothers, wives, and children to incompetent physicians out of ignorance. Lǐ explicitly cites 秦越人 Biǎn Què’s chén yǒu sān nán 臣有三難 doctrine on the three obstacles of medical practice — patients’ arrogance, attendants’ indiscipline, and physicians’ over-confidence — and frames his pedagogical anthology as a remedy for the first two. The work is aimed at the educated literate reader rather than the professional physician.
Abstract
Lǐ Zhōngzǐ was the leading Sōngjiāng physician of the late Míng and one of the founders of the Mìngmén / yáng-tonification school of late-Míng medicine alongside 張介賓 Zhāng Jièbīn. His doctrinal innovations include the píshèn shuāngbǔ 脾腎雙補 (“dual supplementation of spleen and kidneys”) and the xiāntiān / hòutiān gēnběn lùn 先天後天根本論 (“doctrine of the pre-natal and post-natal roots”) that became foundational for late-Míng and early-Qīng clinical practice. His other works — Yīzōng bìdú 醫宗必讀 (10 juan, 1637, a comprehensive medical textbook), Bìngjī shāzhèng 病機沙篆 (4 juan), Shānghán kuòyào 傷寒括要 (2 juan), Běncǎo tōngxuán 本草通玄 (2 juan) — together establish the curriculum of Sōngjiāng-school medicine for the next century.
The Nèijīng zhīyào is the most-printed late-Míng condensed Nèijīng textbook; the Qīng physician 薛雪 Xuē Xuě (薛生白, KR3ea041 and 1764) re-edited it as Lǐ Niàné xiānshēng Nèijīng zhīyào 李念莪先生內經知要 with his own annotations, in which form it circulated as a standard primer through the Qīng. The jicheng.tw source preserves Lǐ’s original organization rather than Xuē Xuě’s expanded version.
Translations and research
- Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (UC Press, 1999) — context on Sōngjiāng medicine.
- Lǐ Zhōngzǐ yīxué quánshū 李中梓醫學全書 (Renmin Weisheng, 1999) — the standard collected edition.