Xíng Sè Wài Zhěn Jiǎn Mó 形色外診簡摩
Concise Polishings of External Diagnosis by Form and Complexion by 周學海 (Zhōu Xuéhǎi, 字澂之, 號健霞, 1856–1906, 清)
About the work
A two-juan late-Qing treatise on external diagnosis — wài zhěn 外診 — by Zhōu Xuéhǎi, treating the inspection of bodily form (xíng 形) and complexion (sè 色) as the systematic complement to the pulse work of his earlier Mài yì jiǎn mó KR3eb036 cycle. The book is conceived as a fifth volume of the Zhōu pulse-and-diagnosis project — the four pulse works plus the present xíngsè wài zhěn synthesis — and treats systematically the three non-pulse diagnostics: wàng 望 (inspection of complexion, tongue, eyes, ears, throat, etc.), wén 聞 (audition of voice, breath, cough), and wèn 問 (interrogation following the Zhāng Jǐngyuè Shí wèn gē 十問歌 framework). The book extends Zhōu’s form-vs-momentum analytic from pulse signatures to the visible bodily features, applying the same principled distinction between xíng (objective form) and shì (dynamic momentum) to inspection and audition.
Prefaces
KR3eb049_000.txt carries Zhōu’s preface, which opens with the now-familiar Zhōu position: the four classical diagnostics (sì zhěn) place inspection first and palpation last, but the medical literature has reversed this priority, treating the pulse as primary and inspection as secondary. Zhōu’s project here is to restore inspection-audition-interrogation to their proper diagnostic weight, complementing his earlier pulse work. The preface laments the loss of Lǐ Yánwén’s KR3eb033 Sì zhěn fā míng and frames his own work as its functional replacement. The conventional dating to 1894 follows the Zhōu shì yī xué cóng shū third-series publication record.
Abstract
The Xíng sè wài zhěn jiǎn mó completes Zhōu Xuéhǎi’s diagnostic project. With the four pulse works it forms the full Zhōu shì zhěn duàn curriculum and was widely read in late-Qing and early-Republican medical pedagogy. The book’s distinctive contribution is the systematic application of the xíng / shì analytic to non-pulse signs: a patient’s complexion has both objective form (the colour itself) and momentum (the dynamic of its change), and only the joint reading is diagnostically informative. The book also contains an unusually full treatment of tongue diagnosis, which subsequent late-Qing tongue-diagnostic manuals (e.g. Liú Héngruì’s KR3eb053 Chá shé biàn zhèng xīn fǎ) draw upon.
For Zhōu’s biographical context and the broader cycle structure see KR3eb036 and the person note.
Translations and research
- No full Western-language translation exists.
- 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 (pulse cycle): KR3eb036, KR3eb037, KR3eb007, KR3eb038.
- 形色外診簡摩 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB