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醫宗金鑑·四診心法要訣

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Text ID
KR3eb004
Date
1742–1742
Dynasty
清

Yī Zōng Jīn Jiàn — Sì Zhěn Xīn Fǎ Yào Jué 醫宗金鑑·四診心法要訣

Essential Verse on the Mental Method of the Four Diagnostics, from the Golden Mirror of Medicine by 吳謙 (Wú Qiān, zì Liùjí 六吉, fl. Qiánlóng early period, 清) and the compilers’ bureau of the Imperial Medical Academy 太醫院 — by imperial commission

About the work

A single-juan extraction from the Yù zuǎn Yī zōng jīn jiàn 御纂醫宗金鑑, the ninety-juan imperially commissioned medical curriculum compiled under Qiánlóng’s orders by Wú Qiān 吳謙 with Liú Yùduó 劉裕鐸 as co-editor and presented in 1742 (with revisions through 1749). The full Yī zōng jīn jiàn covers the entire received corpus — Shānghán commentary, formulary medicine, internal-medicine syndromes, paediatrics, gynaecology, orthopaedics, zhēnjiǔ — and was the official training text of the Imperial Medical Academy throughout the High Qing. The Sì zhěn xīn fǎ yào jué is the section devoted to the four classical diagnostics (望聞問切), cast — like all of the Yī zōng jīn jiàn’s didactic material — in heptasyllabic mnemonic verse (yàojué 要訣) with prose commentary by the editors. The jicheng.tw corpus separates this section out as a standalone work because of its independent circulation in late-Qīng and Republican-period medical pedagogy.

Prefaces

The jicheng.tw file does not preserve the imperial Yù zhì 御製 preface of 1742; that is found with the full compendium at KR3e0090. The bare-text extraction here begins with the mnemonic verses themselves and the editors’ interlinear zhù 注 explaining each line.

Abstract

The compositional unit covers, in order, (1) inspection of complexion (望色) keyed to the five-organ / five-phase scheme; (2) audition of voice and breath (聞聲); (3) interrogation according to the Zhāng Jǐngyuè 張景岳 “ten-question song” (十問歌); and (4) palpation of the pulse — itself subdivided into pulse positions, the twenty-eight pulse-types, the six pulse-rubrics (浮沉遲數虛實), and integrative pulse-pattern reading. The verses are by the editorial bureau, not by any single named author; both the verses and the prose commentary are the work of the official compiling office, with Wú Qiān bearing nominal responsibility as 奉敕撰. This editorial structure (verse + accompanying prose annotation) is the Yī zōng jīn jiàn’s house style and was deliberately designed to be committed to memory by Imperial Medical Academy candidates. The text exerts enormous influence on later Qing pulse pedagogy: many late-Qing and Republican pulse manuals simply gloss the Yào jué lines.

For Wú Qiān’s biographical context and the full compendium, see KR3e0090 Yù zuǎn Yī zōng jīn jiàn. The conventional dating of 1742 follows the imperial preface; minor revisions continued through 1749 under the bureau’s standing commission.

Translations and research

  • The didactic-verse section of the Yī zōng jīn jiàn has been partially translated within Bob Flaws (tr.), The Heart Transmission of Medicine (Boulder: Blue Poppy, 1994), which covers the Yī xué xīn wù 醫學心悟 — a comparable but distinct text — and digresses on the Yī zōng jīn jiàn mnemonic style.
  • Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (London: Routledge, 2011), discusses the Yī zōng jīn jiàn as state-medical orthodoxy of the High Qing.
  • Yú Yǒngmǐn 余永敏 et al., Yī zōng jīn jiàn yán jiū 醫宗金鑑研究 (Beijing: Zhōngyī gǔjí, 2007), is the standard Chinese monograph.

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