Nèijīng yùnqì bìngshì 《內經》運氣病釋
An Explanation of the Climatic-Cycle Pathology of the Inner Classic by 陸懋修 (Lù Màoxiū, 1818–1886, 清) — author
About the work
The Nèijīng yùnqì bìngshì in nine juan is the late-Qīng systematic exposition of the wǔyùn liùqì 五運六氣 (five circulatory phases / six seasonal influences) doctrine of the Sùwèn by Lù Màoxiū 陸懋修 (zì Jiǔzhī 九芝, hào Jiāngzuǒ xiàgōng 江左下工), an eminent Sūzhōu physician of the late-Tóngzhì / Guāngxù era. It is part of Lù’s encyclopaedic Shìbǔzhāi yīshū 世補齋醫書 series (printed 1884), which also contains his Yùnqì biǎo (KR3ea048) and Nèijīng nánzì yīnyì (KR3ea049).
Prefaces
The author’s preface (KR3ea047_000.txt) opens with a precise reading of the seven great treatises of the Sùwèn (Tiānyuán jì 天元紀 through Zhìzhēn yào 至真要, j. 19–22): they all treat the five phases and six influences, climate and disease, the origin of sameness-and-difference / generation-and-transformation, and the correct or perverse / inverse or compliant rules of treatment. The Liùjié zàngxiàng piān 六節藏象篇 introduces the doctrine. Lù asserts that all diseases of heaven-human qì exchange (tiānrén qìjiāo 天人氣交) cannot be diagnosed without this doctrine. He arranges the present work around the doctrine, citing first the Nèijīng text on the typical disease of each climatic configuration, then giving prescription protocols drawn from 陳言 Chén Wúzé’s Sānyīn fāng and from the high-Qiánlóng Jiāngyīn physician Miào Fāngyuǎn 繆芳遠 (Miào Wèn 繆問).
Abstract
Lù Màoxiū was the leading Sūzhōu physician of his generation and the principal continuator of 葉桂 Yè Tiānshì’s wēnbìng tradition in late Qīng. His Shìbǔzhāi yīshū assembled some 35 works (some by Lù himself, others edited from earlier authors) and is one of the major late-Qing medical cóngshū. Lù’s distinctive contribution to yùnqì studies is the systematic reconciliation of wǔyùn liùqì doctrine with the wēnbìng tradition: he reads epidemics as both climatically determined and constitutionally mediated, and his prescription tables are paired-arrangements that allow physicians to match the climatic year to the patient’s constitution.
The Yùnqì bìngshì circulated independently of the parent Shìbǔzhāi yīshū and is one of the standard late-Qing references on yùnqì; reprinted in Lù Màoxiū yīxué quánshū (Renmin Weisheng, 1999).
Translations and research
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011) — chap. on late-Qing wēnbìng and the yùnqì tradition.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition (Eastland, 2007) — on Sūzhōu medicine in the late Qing.