Yī Huì Yuán Yào 醫會元要
Synthesised Essentials of Medical Practice by 蔡貽績 (Cài Yíjī, 字乃庵, fl. Jiāqìng–Dàoguāng, 楚攸 [Yōuxiàn, Húnán], 清)
About the work
A six-juan medical handbook centred on pulse theory and channel anatomy, composed as a companion to Cài Yíjī’s earlier Yī xué zhǐ yào 醫學指要 (1812, KR3eb006). Where the Zhǐ yào organised the material around pulse rubrics, the Huì yuán yào takes the twelve channels as its primary structuring device and supplies for each: (a) a diagram of the channel route with locus-by-locus pathology; (b) the Nèijīng citations on that channel’s normal and pathological pulse signatures; (c) the corresponding pharmacopoeia, marked for tonifying / draining / warming / cooling action. The book’s organising principle is laid out in Cài’s own preface: physicians trained only on rhyming pharmacopoeia (tāngtóu zhī gē, yàoxìng zhī fù) typically miss the question “in which channel does the pattern arise?” — and so the book maps each part of the body onto its governing channel. The work was published with subscription assistance from his Hunan acquaintances Lán Shàng 藍尚 and Lǐ Zhīfāng 李枝芳.
Prefaces
KR3eb005_000.txt contains two paratexts: (1) a zèngxù 贈序 by Chén Zuǒ 陳佐 (hào 顧廬, Húnán Chényuán Yǒngjìng Bīngbèidào 湖南辰沅永靖兵備道), dated Jiāqìng nián’shí wǔ nián gēngchén suì mèngchūn zhī shuò bā rì 嘉慶二十五年庚辰歲孟春之朔八日 = first-month, eighth day of 1820, which mentions that Cài was about to add Nèi shāng jí yào 內傷集要 and Hán wēn jué yào 寒瘟抉要 to his planned printing programme; and (2) Cài’s own self-preface dated Dàoguāng sān nián guǐ wèi suì zhòngxià yuè xiàzhì qián sān rì 道光三年癸未歲仲夏月夏至前三日 = three days before summer solstice, summer of 1823 (the book finally went to press in 1823 with friends’ financial support after Cài returned home).
Abstract
Cài Yíjī 蔡貽績 (zì Nǎiān 乃庵) of Yōuxiàn 攸縣 (湖南) is identified in Chén Zuǒ’s preface as a Hunanese literatus-physician (ChǔYōu míngsù 楚攸名宿) who turned to medicine after being weakened by youthful illness, a standard rúyī 儒醫 narrative. Cài was a polymath whose œuvre included works on the Sì shū 四書, on the Stone Classics (Shí jīng kǎo zhèng 石經考正), on imperial poetry, and on calligraphy and painting, in addition to several medical titles. The catalog records both his pulse-anchored Yī xué zhǐ yào of 1812 and the present companion Yī huì yuán yào of 1823. He is not in CBDB; lifedates are bracketed by the prefaces — born in the early QiánlóngJiāqìng range, alive at over seventy in 1820 (“年登古稀”) and still active in 1823. The pulse and pharmacological material is largely traditional; Cài’s distinctive contribution is the channel-anatomical mapping in juan 1, with woodblock figures (here represented in prose).
Translations and research
- No substantial secondary literature located. The work is mentioned briefly in Yú Jīngméi 余瀛鰲, Zhōng yī gǔ jí xué 中醫古籍學 (Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1986), as one of the late-Qīng Hunanese pulse compendia.
Links
- Cài Yíjī’s prior pulse handbook: KR3eb006 Yī xué zhǐ yào.
- 醫會元要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB