Yī Xué Mài Dēng 醫學脈燈
The Pulse Lamp for Medical Learning by 常朝宜 (Cháng Cháoyí, fl. Qiánlóng early, 清)
About the work
A one-juan mid-18th-century compilation by Cháng Cháoyí, framed as a practical handbook for the working physician. The compiler is explicit about his motivation in the brief preface: after two years of inconclusive personal illness in which “every physician examining the pulse disagreed” (各醫診脈雅不相符), he turned to the Mài jīng and discovered that the version current in his day was “half of it Gāo Yángshēng’s forgery” (半屬高陽偽訣) — confirming the demolitions by Lǐ Shízhēn KR3eb019 and Dài Qǐzōng KR3eb026. The book is an editorial compilation of pulse material drawn from named sources — including a substantial Mài shén 脈神 section attributed to Tōng yī zǐ 通一子 (Zhāng Jǐngyuè 張景岳) — assembled “to spare the student from having to look elsewhere.”
Prefaces
KR3eb031_000.txt carries Cháng’s own preface dated shí Qiánlóng shísì nián jǐsì liù yuè shàng xún huàn fēng 時乾隆十四年己巳六月上旬浣楓 = sixth-month early-period, Qiánlóng 14 = 1749, signed Cháng Cháoyí 常朝宣 (var. 常朝宜). The text proceeds directly to the Mài shén section.
Abstract
Cháng Cháoyí 常朝宜 is otherwise undocumented. His pulse-philological position — accepting the Lǐ Shízhēn / Dài Qǐzōng demolition of the pseudo-Mài jué — is mainstream for the mid-Qiánlóng moment; what is unusual is the practical motivation (his own bodily affliction), which gives the preface unusual rhetorical force. The compiler’s name appears as 常朝宣 in the preface signature and as 常朝宜 in the catalog; the latter is followed here. No CBDB record.
The book is one of several mid-Qing pulse handbooks produced for the working physician rather than for the medical-academy curriculum; its closest contemporaries are KR3eb024 (Huáng Gōngxiù, 1769) and KR3eb027 / KR3eb028 (Shěn Jīn’áo, 1773).
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation exists.
- No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Wikidata: not assigned.
- 醫學脈燈 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB