Mài Yǔ 脈語
Conversations on the Pulse by 吳昆 (Wú Kūn, zì Shānfǔ 山甫, hào Hègāo 鶴皋 / 參黃子 Cānhuángzǐ, 1551–1620+, 明)
About the work
A two-juan late-Wàn-lì pulse manual by Wú Kūn, the Hùizhōu / Xīn’ān master physician. Wú frames the book as yǔlù 語錄 — “conversations” or recorded sayings — and writes it in dialogue form, with the master taking questions on pulse principles and dispensing terse, clinically pointed replies. The doctrinal stance is firmly anti-pseudonymous-Mài jué: in his preface Wú observes that “since the six-dynasties Gāo Yángshēng appropriated Wáng Shūhé’s name and wrote the Mài jué, pulse doctrine has been obscured for centuries” (自六朝高陽生偽叔和而著《脈訣》，脈之不明也久矣), aligning him with the Lǐ Shízhēn / Dài Qǐzōng / Huá Shòu critique. The book gives substantial attention to the Língshū’s Wǔ sè 五色 chapter and integrates colour-inspection with pulse-palpation under a single diagnostic framework.
Prefaces
KR3eb040_000.txt carries Wú’s autobiographical preface — undated — recounting his medical training: a jǔzǐ career frustrated by repeated examination failure (十年舉子業不售), the local elders’ suggestion that he turn to medicine (bù wéi liáng xiàng, dìng wéi liáng yī 不為良相，定為良醫), and a thirty-year journey through Wú (Suzhou), Zhè (Zhejiang), JīngXiāng (Hubei-Hunan), YānZhào (Hebei) seeking teachers (jiù yǒu dào zhě shī shì zhī 就有道者師事之). The preface concludes with the project — Mài yǔ as a two-篇 collection of recorded sayings (jí chéng yǔlù èr piān 集成語錄二篇). The signature reads Cānhuáng zǐ Wú Kūn Hègāo shì zhuàn 參黃子吳昆鶴皋氏撰. The conventional dating of the work is to 1584 (Wànlì 12), the same period as his much more famous Yī fāng kǎo 醫方考 (1584).
Abstract
Wú Kūn 吳昆 (1551–c.1620), zì Shānfǔ 山甫, hào Hègāo 鶴皋 (also Cānhuángzǐ 參黃子), of Xīn’ān 新安 (Hùizhōu, Anhui), was one of the principal late-Wàn-lì Xīn’ān physicians and a major contributor to the late-Ming clinical synthesis. His four major works are: Yī fāng kǎo 醫方考 (1584, a critical formulary), Huáng dì nèi jīng Sùwèn Wú zhù 黃帝內經素問吳注 (1594, a Sùwèn commentary), Mài yǔ 脈語 (1584, the present work), and Zhēn fāng liù jí 針方六集 (1618, acupuncture). The Mài yǔ is the smallest of these but doctrinally significant, particularly for its integration of pulse and complexion inspection and for the autobiographical preface, which is one of the principal first-person accounts of late-Ming medical apprenticeship.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation exists.
- The Mài yǔ is treated in Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Qí Huáng yī xué 岐黃醫學 (Beijing: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1991), and in Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Seattle: Eastland Press, 2007).
- Modern critical edition: in Xīn’ān yī jí cóng kān 新安醫籍叢刊 (Hefei: Anhui kexue jishu, 1990).
Other points of interest
Wú Kūn’s preface is one of the most vivid first-person accounts in late-Ming medical literature of the practitioner’s life-cycle: the failed examination career, the practical reorientation to medicine, the thirty-year itinerant apprenticeship, and the late return home to write. It is frequently anthologised in modern Chinese medical-historical readers.
Links
- Companion works by the author: Yī fāng kǎo (not in this division), Sùwèn Wú zhù (cf. KR3ea014).
- Wikidata: not assigned.
- 脈語 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB