聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

臨症驗舌法

5 min read

Text ID
KR3eb052
Date
1830–1873
Dynasty
清

Línzhèng Yàn Shé Fǎ 臨症驗舌法

Method of Tongue Verification in Clinical Practice by 楊雲峰 (Yáng Yúnfēng, fl. mid-19th c., 清)

About the work

A two-juan late-Qīng manual of tongue diagnosis — yàn shé 驗舌 — by Yáng Yúnfēng of Wúxiàn 吳縣 (Sūzhōu). The book is the most systematic single-author Qīng treatment of the tongue as a diagnostic modality independent of the Shānghán tradition: where Áo / Dù’s KR3eb051 Jīnjìng lù and 張登 Zhāng Dēng’s KR3eb054 Shānghán shé jiàn are tied to the cold-damage symptomatology, Yáng abstracts the tongue-diagnostic method from any specific disease framework and reorganises it as a general clinical instrument applicable to all internal and external complaints (“凡內外雜症，亦無一不呈其形、著其色於舌”). The book is composed of three principal diagnostic protocols — “verify by tongue to distinguish deficiency vs. excess” 驗舌分虛實法, “verify by tongue to distinguish yīn vs. yáng” 驗舌分陰陽法, and “verify by tongue to identify the affected viscus and prescribe the master formula” 驗舌分臟腑配主方法 — followed by an appendix on using the tongue to decide life and death 驗舌決生死法.

Prefaces

KR3eb052_001.txt opens with Yáng’s autobiographical preface in which he records that, from the age of “weak-cap” (ruò guàn 弱冠, i.e. age 20), he had inherited the family medical tradition; he had then taken up the Jīnjìng lù’s thirty-six figures one by one to test them clinically, and had found their method “shū duō wèi hé” 殊多未合 — substantially inadequate. He had brought the difficulty to his father, who responded with a citation from a certain Dōngzhuāng 東莊 (probably Shěn Zōnggàn 沈宗淦, hào Dōngzhuāng, a Sòng / Yuán transitional figure later quoted as authority on tongue diagnosis): “金鏡三十六舌，當參其意而勿泥其法” — “engage the spirit of the 36 figures, do not be bound by the letter.” Yáng’s project is the working-out of this paternal instruction: a tongue-diagnostic system that retains Áo’s classificatory ambition but is freed from its formal rigidities.

Abstract

The work’s central methodological contribution is the three-axis tongue analytic. First, the tongue’s form — whether it is “firm, contracted, ancient” 堅斂蒼老 (excess) or “swollen, plump, tender” 浮胖嬌嫩 (deficiency) — diagnoses xū / shí 虛實. Second, the tongue’s texture — whether it is “dry” 乾燥 (yang excess / yin deficiency) or “slippery, moist” 滑潤 (yin excess / yang deficiency) — diagnoses yīn / yáng 陰陽. Third, the tongue’s colour — qīng 青 / zǐ 紫 (liver and gallbladder), huáng 黃 (spleen and stomach), chì 赤 (heart and small intestine), bái 白 (lung and large intestine), hēi 黑 (kidney and bladder) — diagnoses the affected viscus. The three axes are then cross-tabulated to yield a specific master prescription drawn from the post-Sòng fāngjì repertoire (Xiāo yáo sǎn 逍遙散, Guī pí tāng 歸脾湯, Bǔ zhōng yì qì tāng 補中益氣湯, Liù wèi yǐn 六味飲, Bā wèi dì huáng wán 八味地黃丸, Sì nì tāng 四逆湯, Lǐ zhōng tāng 理中湯, Yǎng róng tāng 養榮湯, etc.).

Yáng’s lifedates are not externally attested. The book is conventionally dated to Tóngzhì 12 = 1873, the year of its first widely-circulated printing; the underlying composition is probably earlier (Dàoguāng to early Tóngzhì = c. 1830–1870). The text was later anthologised by Péi Jǐngān 裴景安 in Sānsān yī shū 三三醫書 (1924) and by 曹炳章 Cáo Bǐngzhāng in Zhōngguó yī xué dà chéng 中國醫學大成 (1935–37, where it appears in the diagnostics volume together with 劉恆瑞 Liú Héngruì’s KR3eb053 Chá shé biàn zhèng xīn fǎ and Cáo’s own KR3eb056 Biàn shé zhǐ nán).

A distinctive theoretical move is Yáng’s redirection of “yù huǒ” 鬱火 (suppressed-fire syndrome) away from the liver (the standard post-Jīn / Yuán attribution) and toward the gall-bladder. His argument turns on the relative qì-maturity of the two organs (liver = mature yǐmù 乙木, easily inflamed; gall-bladder = juvenile jiǎmù 甲木, easily depressed); rage is the liver’s pathology, depression the gall-bladder’s. This becomes one of the most-cited Qīng theoretical innovations in the yù huǒ literature.

The text closes with a list of eleven mortal tongue signs (the “rind-stripped pig kidney” tongue 去膜豬腰子舌, the “mirror-surface” tongue 鏡面舌, the “sand-paper” tongue 沙皮舌, the “lychee-flesh” tongue 荔子肉舌, etc.) accompanied by Yáng’s striking ethical injunction that even tongues belonging to the “hundred-without-one-recoverable” category deserve a wholehearted attempt at treatment.

Translations and research

  • No full Western-language translation exists.
  • Anthologised in: Péi Jǐngān 裴景安 (ed.), Sānsān yī shū 三三醫書 (Shanghai, 1924).
  • Anthologised in: 曹炳章 Cáo Bǐngzhāng (ed.), Zhōngguó yī xué dà chéng 中國醫學大成 (Shanghai: Dàdōng shūjú, 1935–37).
  • Modern punctuated edition: in Míng Qīng zhōng yī mìng jiā quán shū dà chéng 明清中醫名家全書大成 series (Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào, 2002 ff.).

Graph View

Backlinks