Zēngguǎng Héjì Jú Fāng Yàoxìng Zǒnglùn 增廣和劑局方藥性總論
Expanded General Treatise on Drug Properties for the Pharmacy-Bureau Formularies anonymous Yuán-dynasty compilation
About the work
The Zēngguǎng Héjì Jú Fāng Yàoxìng Zǒnglùn is a Yuán-dynasty (or perhaps very early Míng) compilation that retrofits the Sòng Tàipíng huìmín héjì jú fāng 太平惠民和劑局方 — the Northern Sòng imperial pharmacy formulary — with a substance-by-substance pharmacology in the Zhènglèi běncǎo (KR3ec009) tradition. The work systematically extracts each ingredient occurring in the Héjì jú fāng and presents it under its 味、氣、毒性, with main effects culled from the Běnjīng, Biélù, Yàoxìng lùn (《藥性論》), Rìhuá zǐ běncǎo (《日華子諸家本草》), Lǐ Dāngzhī, Chén Cángqì 陳藏器, the Wàitái mìyào fāng 外臺秘要方, and (notably) Shèngjì jīngyàn fāng 聖濟經驗方. The arrangement follows the Běnjīng-tradition 三品 (上中下) structure within the Zhènglèi’s natural-history categories 玉石部 / 草部 / 木部 / 蟲魚部 / 獸禽部 / 米食部.
The work is anonymous; the catalog meta gives no author and dates it 元. The transmitted text in 漢學文典 reveals it as essentially a yàoxìng (drug-properties) reference book keyed to the Héjì jú fāng — a working tool for physicians and apothecaries needing to look up the pharmacological logic of the imperial prescriptions.
Prefaces
The 漢學文典 transmitted text begins directly with the 玉石部上品 丹砂 entry, without a preface. The work’s structure is identical to a standard Zhènglèi-line yàoxìng compendium with the additional feature that each entry’s main-effects section concludes with a notation indicating which Héjì jú fāng prescription uses the substance.
Abstract
The work has no securely identified author. The terminology used — particularly the absorption of Wáng Hàogǔ’s 王好古 fǎxiàng doctrine (cf. KR3ec011) and a near-complete absence of citations of late-Míng authorities — suggests a composition in the Yuán dynasty, plausibly between 1271 (Yuán founding) and 1368 (Míng founding). The dating in frontmatter spans this conservative window. The work’s principal value is that it makes the Héjì jú fāng’s pharmacology accessible to practitioners by extracting it from the prescription-by-prescription format of the parent text into an alphabetised-by-substance reference.
The work is rarely studied in modern scholarship and its independent value is mostly bibliographic — as a witness to the way Sòng imperial pharmacology was repackaged for clinical use in the late-Yuán period. It belongs to a cluster of Yuán-dynasty yàoxìng compilations (cf. Yàoxìng yàoyào 藥性要要, Yàoxìng cǎoyào dàquán 藥性草要大全) that translated the encyclopaedic Sòng pharmacopoeia into clinical-practice manuals.
Translations and research
- *No major secondary studies have located the Zēngguǎng Yàoxìng zǒnglùn in the Yuán pharmacopoeic tradition; it is treated by Shang Zhijun, Zhōngguó běncǎo yàowù shǐ 中國本草藥物史 (2008), as a transitional Sòng-Yuán-Míng compilation.
- No Western-language translation or study.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 增廣和劑局方藥性總論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB