Sìshèng xuánshū 四聖懸樞
The Suspended Pivot of the Four Sages by 黃元御 (Huáng Yuányù, 1705–1758, 清) — author
(The catalog meta gives the author’s name as 黃玉璐; this was his original given name (本名), changed to 黃元御 in adulthood. The two prefaces in this work, and his other works in the jicheng.tw corpus, are signed 昌邑黃元御 / 玉楸子, which is the form followed here. See 黃元御.)
About the work
The Sìshèng xuánshū in five juan is Huáng Yuányù’s systematic treatise on epidemic febrile disease (溫疫, 痘疹, 疫癘) — domains which, Huáng argues, were left underdeveloped by the four sages of the medical canon: Huángdì 黃帝 (KR3ea001 Sùwèn), Qí Bó 岐伯, Qín Yuèrén 秦越人 (KR3ea054 Nànjīng), and Zhāng Zhòngjǐng 張機 (KR3e0010 Shānghán lùn). The five-juan structure covers temperate-epidemic 溫病 (j. 1), summer-heat 暑疫 (j. 2), epidemic-disease proper 疫癘 (j. 3), smallpox 痘 (j. 4), and measles 疹 (j. 5). The work is a polemic against the late-Míng / early-Qing physicians (including the Wújiāng school of 吳有性 Wú Yǒukě’s Wēnyì lùn, and the 痘疹 “胎毒” tradition) for treating epidemic disease as either ordinary 傷寒 or as “fetal poison” (胎毒); Huáng insists the etiology lies in yùnqì (seasonal-cycle) factors. The title borrows the acupuncture-point name Xuánshū 懸樞 (a Dūmài point), used metaphorically: the four sages’ core insight is “suspended” between traditions and must be re-pivoted.
Prefaces
KR3ea052_000.txt carries Huáng Yuányù’s 自敘 (self-preface), dated Rénshēn shíyuè 壬申十月 = the tenth lunar month of 1752, signed 昌邑黃元御. The preface narrates that he drafted the work beginning Jǐsì chūnchū 己巳春初 = early spring of 1749, completed the textual editing Xīnwèi liùyuè 辛未六月 = sixth month of 1751 at the Qīngjiāng héyuàn 清江河院 government office (where he was attached to the river-administration in Húběi), and finalized the printed copy in the tenth month of 1752. The preface is one of the most aggressively rhetorical of Qing medical prefaces: Huáng describes the late-Míng smallpox commentary tradition as “myriad children’s nonsense” (群兒之訛謬) and predicts that his book will, like 揚雄 Yáng Xióng’s Tàixuán 太玄, find its readership in a future age — he expects to be ridiculed in his own time. The preface explicitly identifies his target as the xiōngshū (兄書) of 吳有性 Wú Yǒukě and the tāidú 胎毒 advocates.
Abstract
Composition window 1749–1752, attested by the preface and internal textual references. Huáng Yuányù (1705–1758), zì Kūnzài 坤載, hào Yánnóng 研農, biéhào Yùqiūzi 玉楸子, was a native of Chāngyì 昌邑 in Láizhōu 萊州, Shāndōng. His clinical career as a Confucian-trained scholar-physician turned medical iconoclast began after an iatrogenic eye injury in 1737 left him partly blind — see 黃元御 for full details. The Sìshèng xuánshū is his most sustained engagement with epidemic-disease theory; it is intertextually paired with his Shānghán xuánjiě 傷寒懸解, Jīnguì xuánjiě 金匱懸解, Sùlíng wēiyùn 素靈微蘊 (KR3ea053), Nànjīng xuánjiě 難經懸解 (KR3ea063), and Sìshèng xīnyuán 四聖心源 — collectively known as the 十書 (Shíshū) of the 玉楸子. The Sìshèng xuánshū was first printed in 1753 and reissued in many Qing-Republican impressions; the modern critical edition is in the Sūn Guózhōng 孫國中 / Fāng Xiàngdōng 方向東 Huáng Yuányù yīxué quánshū 黃元御醫學全書 (Beijing: Zhōngyī gǔjí, 1996).
The doctrinal core: epidemic febrile diseases (溫熱 / 溫疫 / 痘疹) all arise from yīnjīng 陰精 failing to be properly stored in winter (dōng bù cáng jīng 冬不藏精, from Sùwèn j. 4), which depletes the Tàiyáng / Shàoyīn shuǐ 水 reservoir; the resulting xiānghuǒ 相火 fire smoulders until disturbed by a spring or summer wind/dew, at which point it erupts as visible disease. Therapy must therefore be cooling and moistening rather than 麻桂-style warm-acrid sudorifics. This is a thoroughgoing reading of Sùwèn j. 5 (Yīnyáng yìngxiàng lùn) and j. 4 (Jīnguì zhēnyán lùn) against the post-Zhāng-Jièbīn (KR3ea036) “warm-supplement” school.
Translations and research
- Sūn Guózhōng 孫國中 and Fāng Xiàngdōng 方向東 (eds.), Huáng Yuányù yīxué quánshū 黃元御醫學全書 (Beijing: Zhōngyī gǔjí chūbǎnshè, 1996) — collected edition including the Sìshèng xuánshū with annotations.
- Liú Yìmíng 劉一明 (modern), Huáng Yuányù yīxué sīxiǎng yánjiū 黃元御醫學思想研究 (Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào, 2005).
- Yú Yīng 余瀛鼇 et al., MíngQīng yījiā yánlùn xuǎn 明清醫家言論選 (Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng, 1992) — selections incl. Huáng’s epidemic prefaces.
- No substantial English-language translation located.
Other points of interest
The Sìshèng xuánshū contains an unusually open polemic against 吳有性 Wú Yǒukě’s Wēnyì lùn 溫疫論 (1642), the founding text of the late-Míng wēnyì school. Where Wú locates epidemic etiology in an external lìqì 癘氣 (pestilent pneuma) entering through the mouth and nose, Huáng locates it in the prior depletion of yīnjīng. The two positions remained the major Qing-period rivals; the late-Qing 葉桂 Yè Tiānshì Wēnrè lùn synthesis eventually displaced both.