Mài Yì Jiǎn Mó 脈義簡摩
Concise Polishings of Pulse Doctrine by 周學海 (Zhōu Xuéhǎi, 字澂之, 號健霞, 1856–1906, 清)
About the work
An eight-juan late-Qīng treatise on pulse doctrine — the most extensive of the four works in Zhōu Xuéhǎi’s pulse cycle (the others are KR3eb037 Mài jiǎn bǔ yì, KR3eb007 Chóng dìng zhěn jiā zhí jué, and KR3eb038 Biàn mài píng mài zhāng jù; the four together comprise twelve juan). Where the Chóng dìng zhí jué is a working clinical abridgement, the Jiǎn mó is the full scholastic exposition: Zhōu re-examines the entire received pulse-doctrinal heritage, pulse-type by pulse-type, citing the Sùwèn, Língshū, Nànjīng, Mài jīng, and every major Sòng-Yuán-Ming-Qing pulse author, and offering his own àn 按 on each contested point.
Prefaces
KR3eb036_000.txt carries Zhōu’s preface and front matter; subsequent body files (_001 through _008) contain the eight juan. The work was printed as the first series of the Zhōu shì yī xué cóng shū 周氏醫學叢書 in 1891 (Guāngxù xīnmǎo 光緒辛卯), and the Jiǎn mó anchors the series. Zhōu was 35 at publication; the manuscript was largely complete during his 1888–1890 jìnshì-and-Gānsù years.
Abstract
Zhōu Xuéhǎi 周學海 (1856–1906) of Jiànyáng 建陽 (Anhui), jìnshì of 1888, retired from official service in his thirties to Wúhú 蕪湖 to devote himself to medical scholarship. The Mài yì jiǎn mó and its three companions are the most ambitious post-Qing pulse-doctrinal project in the late dynastic period. Zhōu’s distinctive contribution — set out programmatically here, then condensed in the Chóng dìng zhí jué and applied to the Shānghán / Jīnguì pulse passages in the Zhāng jù — is the form-vs-momentum analysis of pulse signatures (qìxuè xíngshì 氣血形勢; see KR3eb007). The Jiǎn mó also contains an important section on the pulse signatures of women’s medicine and paediatrics, a topic that earlier Qing pulse manuals had treated only cursorily.
The dating to 1891 follows the Zhōu shì yī xué cóng shū first-series publication. For Zhōu’s biographical context see the person note.
Translations and research
- No full Western-language translation exists.
- Catherine Despeux discusses Zhōu’s pulse cycle in her contribution to Innovation in Chinese Medicine (Cambridge: CUP, 2001).
- Standard modern critical edition: Dīng Guāngdí 丁光迪 (ed.), Zhōu Xuéhǎi yī xué quán shū 周學海醫學全書 (Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào, 1999).
Links
- Sister volumes in the Zhōu pulse cycle: KR3eb037 Mài jiǎn bǔ yì, KR3eb007 Chóng dìng zhěn jiā zhí jué, KR3eb038 Biàn mài píng mài zhāng jù.
- 脈義簡摩 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB