Yào Jiàn 藥鑑
The Mirror of Drugs by 杜文燮 (Dù Wénxiè, zì Tiānjiéng 天倩, late 16th – early 17th c., 明)
About the work
The Yào jiàn is a late-Míng pharmacological textbook in 2 juǎn by the Wāntōng 婉東 (Húīzhōu) physician Dù Wénxiè. The work is organised by drug-category and provides for each substance a brief discussion of qìwèi, channel-entry, main effects, contraindications, and pairing rules, with mnemonic rhymes for student use. Wāng Áng’s 汪昂 Běncǎo bèiyào (KR3ec038) cites it occasionally as a working reference. The work is preserved in the Sìkù wèishōu shū jíkān and various Qīng reprints.
Prefaces
The transmitted text preserves Dù’s own preface and an editor’s introduction. Dù’s preface argues that students need a “jiàn” (mirror) for drugs — a reference that can be quickly consulted but that reveals deep principles when used carefully.
Abstract
Dù Wénxiè (杜文燮), zì Tiānjiéng 天倩, fl. Wànlì era, native of Xīnān 新安 / Húīzhōu (modern Ānhuī). Like Chén Jiāmó (KR3ec024) and the Wāng Áng publishing network (KR3ec028, KR3ec038), Dù is a Húīzhōu physician embedded in the late-Míng commercial-cultural publishing world. He is otherwise obscure; no major biographical record survives outside of Húīzhōu gazetteers. The work was completed and printed in the late Wànlì era; the date range 1598–1613 reflects the plausible composition window.
The Yào jiàn’s significance is principally that it represents the Húīzhōu commercial-medical pharmacological literature in the generation between Chén Jiāmó’s Méngquán (1565) and Wāng Áng’s Bèiyào (1694). It is the kind of mid-tier pharmacological textbook that the late-Míng Húīzhōu merchant-physicians published in volume to serve the expanding zhōngyī market.
Translations and research
- No substantial secondary literature located beyond mentions in surveys of Húīzhōu medicine.
- Yú Yìng 余瑩, ed. 1990. Húīzhōu yī xué 徽州醫學. Anhui kexue jishu.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 藥鑑 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB