Mài Lǐ Qiú Zhēn 脈理求真
Seeking Truth in Pulse Theory by 黃宮繡 (Huáng Gōngxiù, zì Jǐnfāng 錦芳, fl. Qiánlóng, 江西宜黃, 清)
About the work
A three-juan mid-Qiánlóng pulse manual by the Jiangxi physician Huáng Gōngxiù — one of the more polemically minded mid-Qing pulse texts, conceived (as the title indicates) as a “search for truth” against the accumulated pulse-doctrinal confusions of the SòngYuánMíng. Juan 1 presents the Xīn zhù mài fǎ xīn yào 新著脈法心要 — Huáng’s own systematic exposition of the twenty-eight pulse types, framed as a deliberate replacement for the inherited verse-mnemonic tradition. Juan 2 covers the xīn pulse fǎ applied to specific disease patterns, with case material drawn from his own clinical practice. Juan 3 includes the Sì zhěn yào jué 四診要訣 and Yī yǎn lùn 醫眼論 (a brief discussion of inspection-diagnosis paralleling the pulse work).
Prefaces
KR3eb024_000.txt is absent in the jicheng.tw corpus; the body begins directly with KR3eb024_001.txt (juan 1). The conventional dating of the work to Qiánlóng 34 = 1769 follows external editions (Huáng’s home-printed Yìhuáng 宜黃 edition of that year). Huáng’s other major work, the Běncǎo qiú zhēn 本草求真 (a parallel pharmacological work), is dated 1769 and shares stylistic and rhetorical features with the Mài lǐ qiú zhēn; the two works appear to have been issued together.
Abstract
Huáng Gōngxiù 黃宮繡 (zì Jǐnfāng 錦芳) was a Yìhuáng 宜黃 (Jiāngxī) physician of the High Qing. Conventional lifedates are 1731–1818, though they are not securely fixed. He is principally known for the Běncǎo qiú zhēn 本草求真 (a pharmacological “search for truth,” 1769, in the same series), which became a widely circulated pharmacopoeia in the late Qing. The Mài lǐ qiú zhēn is its companion in pulse theory: a similarly polemical statement against received doctrine and an attempt to reconstruct pulse practice on the basis of Nèijīng + Mài jīng + direct clinical observation. The pulse-type taxonomy follows the Lǐ Shízhēn / Lǐ Zhōngzǐ twenty-eight-pulse line (KR3eb014, KR3eb020), but Huáng adds his own àn 按 to almost every pulse, often dissenting from the orthodox treatment.
The book was reprinted many times in the late Qing and the early Republic, and is one of the standard references for mid-Qing pulse-doctrinal positions.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation exists.
- Modern Chinese editions include the Huáng Gōngxiù yī xué quán shū 黃宮繡醫學全書 (Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào, 1999).
Links
- Companion pharmacology: Běncǎo qiú zhēn 本草求真 (not in this division).
- Wikidata: not assigned.
- 脈理求真 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB