Běncǎo Wèndá 本草問答
Catechism on the Materia Medica by 唐宗海 (Táng Zōnghǎi, zì Róngchuān 容川, 1847–1897, 清)
About the work
The Běncǎo wèndá is one of the five works of Táng Zōnghǎi’s ZhōngXī huìtōng wǔ zhǒng 中西匯通五種 collection (1893). It is the pharmacological component of his programmatic attempt to integrate late-Qīng Protestant-missionary medical knowledge with the NèijīngShānghán tradition. The work is cast in wèndá 問答 (question-and-answer / catechism) form: a disciple poses pharmacological problems and Táng responds with a systematic theoretical account grounded in qìwèishēngjiàng doctrine, zàngfǔ channel-entry, and — distinctively — Western anatomy and physiology where it bears on drug action.
The work in 2 juǎn covers approximately 100 substances and a set of general pharmacological problems (the basis of qì and wèi, the meaning of channel-entry, why some drugs from foreign lands work in Chinese patients, why mineral substances act differently from plant substances). It is intentionally pedagogical rather than encyclopaedic: Táng wrote it to teach his Shànghǎi medical students the principles of pharmacology, not as a reference book. The work’s distinctive contribution is the early effort to read Chinese drug doctrine against Western chemistry — for example, Táng discusses 氣 in the language of late-Qīng Sino-Western physiology, and uses Hobson’s [[KR3ea044|Yī jīng jīng yì]]-style anatomical illustrations to ground his pharmacology in observable structure.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the wèndá body. Standard editions preserve Táng’s own preface dated 光緒癸巳 (1893), and a series of wèndá prefatory exchanges that introduce the method.
Abstract
Táng Zōnghǎi (唐宗海, 1847–1897), zì Róngchuān 容川, native of Péngshān 彭山 (Sìchuān), conventionally regarded as the founder of the Chinese-Western medical-synthesis school (中西匯通派). See his person note.
The Wèndá’s significance in the materia medica tradition is as the principal late-Qīng theoretical attempt to modernise Chinese pharmacology by engaging with Western science rather than (as in the jīngfāng current of Zhōu Yán 周巖 KR3ec053) by returning to Zhāng Zhòngjǐng. Táng’s huìtōng programme was eclipsed in the 20th century by more thoroughgoing Western-medical adoption on one side and jīngfāng purism on the other, but it is the principal early model for the integrative TCM curriculum that emerged in the 1950s PRC.
Translations and research
- Andrews, Bridie. 2014. The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960. UBC Press. — extensive treatment of Táng.
- Lei, Sean Hsiang-lin. 2014. Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China’s Modernity. UCP. — situates Táng’s huì-tōng programme.
- Scheid, Volker. 2007. Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Eastland Press.
- Běncǎo wèndá xiàn dài jiěshuō 本草問答現代解說. 2003. Shanxi kexue jishu.
- No complete Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: Q15869135 (Táng Zōnghǎi).
- 本草問答 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB