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湯液本草

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Text ID
KR3ec011
Date
1289–1306
Dynasty
元

Tāngyè Běncǎo 湯液本草

Materia Medica for Decoctions by 王好古 (Wáng Hàogǔ, zì Jìnzhī 進之, hào Hǎicáng 海藏, c. 1200 – c. 1308, 元), in the lineage of 張元素 (Zhāng Yuánsù, Jiégǔ lǎorén 潔古老人) and 李杲 (Lǐ Gǎo, Dōngyuán 東垣)

About the work

The Tāngyè běncǎo is the canonical Yuán-dynasty synthesis of pharmacology and clinical formula theory in the Easy-Old (易水) lineage of Zhāng Yuánsù — Lǐ Gǎo — Wáng Hàogǔ. Where Sòng-tradition pharmacopoeias (the Zhènglèi line, KR3ec009) had treated drugs as descriptive entries each with their qìwèi and main effects, Wáng’s project is to integrate pharmacology into the doctrinal categories of his teachers: the zàngfǔ qíwàng correlations of Zhāng Yuánsù, the yǐnyáo / shǐyào (引藥/使藥) classification of Lǐ Gǎo, the fǎxiàng 法象 (cosmological-image) system that derived medicinal direction from yīnyáng and the qìwèi houshào (氣味厚薄) doctrine. The work in 3 juǎn opens with abstract chapters on the five-zàng preferences, bǔxiè (補瀉) rules, and the fǎxiàng classification of 242 substances into the cosmological categories fēngshēngshēng 風升生 / rèfúzhǎng 熱浮長 / shīhuàchéng 濕化成 / zàojiàngshōu 燥降收 / hánchéncáng 寒沉藏, then proceeds substance by substance integrating Běnjīng, Biélù, Zhènglèi, Sòng/Jīn glosses (Zhāng’s, Lǐ’s, Zhū Zhènhēng’s), and Wáng’s own clinical comments.

Prefaces

The 漢學文典 transmitted text begins directly with the first chapter on five-zàng drug preferences without a separate preface. The fǎxiàng system, attributed jointly to Lǐ Gǎo and Zhāng Yuánsù, is presented as the work’s theoretical core: “Heaven has yīnyáng — wind, cold, heat, damp, dryness, fire — and the three yīn and three yáng respond above; the warming, cooling, cold, hot — these are the four qì. Earth has yīnyáng — metal, wood, water, fire, earth — and the cycle of birth, growth, transformation, harvest, storage responds below; the pungent, sweet, bland, sour, bitter, salty — these are the five wèi.” This cosmological framing makes pharmacology directly derivable from yīnyáng metaphysics — the doctrine that distinguishes the Yìshuǐ 易水 (Easy-River) school from the empirical Běnjīng tradition.

Abstract

Wáng Hàogǔ (王好古), zì Jìnzhī 進之, hào Hǎicáng 海藏 (“Hidden in the Sea”), native of Zhàozhōu 趙州 (modern Héběi), is one of the four canonical great masters of the Jīn-Yuán pharmacological revolution alongside Liú Wánsù 劉完素, Zhāng Cóngzhèng 張從正, Lǐ Gǎo 李杲, and Zhū Zhènhēng 朱震亨. He was a student first of Zhāng Yuánsù (1131–after 1234), then of Lǐ Gǎo (1180–1251), and through them inherited the Yìshuǐ (Easy-River) school’s reformation of pharmacology around zàngfǔ doctrine and yīnyáng metaphysics. His conventional lifedates are c. 1200 – c. 1308 (a remarkable old age that is well-attested in his prefatory remarks). The work was probably completed in the late 13th century; the date 1289 (世祖至元二十六年) is sometimes given as a terminus a quo and 1306 (成宗大德十年) as a terminus ad quem based on internal references.

The Tāngyè běncǎo is the indispensable Yuán-dynasty witness to the integration of pharmacology with the Sùwèn-Língshū tradition. Where the Sòng Zhènglèi treats each drug as a discrete bibliographic-pharmacological entry, the Tāngyè presents drugs as integrated participants in bǔxiè algorithms keyed to zàngfǔ pathology. The Yuán-Míng yīzōng (medical-lineage) tradition (Lǐ Shízhēn included) treats this work as the standard transition between Sòng pharmacopoeia and Míng clinical pharmacology.

Translations and research

  • Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 1994. Jīn-Yuán yī xué jiǎn shǐ 金元醫學簡史. Hubei kexue jishu. — chapter on the Yìshuǐ school and the Tāngyè běncǎo.
  • Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin, ch. 4. UCP. — uses Wáng Hàogǔ to establish the Yìshuǐ model of pharmacology.
  • Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2012. “Reasoning with Cases: The Transmission of Clinical Medical Knowledge in Twelfth-Century Song China.” In Thinking with Cases, ed. Furth et al. UHP.
  • Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (coll.). 1990. Tāngyè běncǎo (校注本). Renmin weisheng.
  • No Western-language translation.

Other points of interest

The Tāngyè běncǎo’s integration of bǔxiè logic with substance-by-substance pharmacology is the immediate ancestor of every later “rationalist” Chinese pharmacology, including Lǐ Shízhēn’s 李時珍 Gāngmù 發明 sections, Wāng Áng’s 汪昂 Běncǎo bèi yào (KR3ec038) “rationalised” briefs, and the modern Western-influenced Chinese-medicine textbooks of the 20th century.

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