Běncǎo Zéyào Gāngmù 本草擇要綱目
Selected Essentials from the Compendium of Materia Medica by 蔣介繁 (Jiǎng Jièfán, fl. mid-17th c., 清), printed posthumously by his son 蔣雪洲 Jiǎng Xuězhōu
About the work
The Běncǎo zéyào gāngmù is one of the earliest Qīng-period Gāngmù digests — printed in 康熙己未 (1679, just over eighty years after the Gāngmù’s 1596 first printing). Jiǎng Jièfán was a Xīn’ān 新安 (Huīzhōu) literatus-physician who realised that Lǐ Shízhēn’s 李時珍 vast pharmacopoeia (KR3ec025) was too unwieldy for working clinical use. He extracted 356 essential drugs (“僅三百五十餘種，猶精卒良將之足以殲敵” — only some 350 species, like elite troops and capable generals sufficient to defeat the enemy), retained the Gāngmù’s nature/味/channel-entry structure plus the most authoritative comments, and stripped the natural-history apparatus that made the original so bulky.
The work in 3 juǎn (上、中、下) organises substances by the Gāngmù’s 玉石／草／木 classes with nature-grade (寒/熱/溫/平) noted at each entry. Each entry gives 氣味, primary indications (主治), and 畏惡反忌 incompatibilities, plus selected commentarial notes from earlier physicians. Strange or hard-to-source substances are deliberately omitted (“其怪異難購者，不復贅及”). This is the first major Qīng “zéyào” (selected-essentials) digest of the Gāngmù, and it stands at the head of the Qīng tradition of working clinical pharmacopoeias that runs through Wāng Áng’s 汪昂 Běncǎo bèiyào (KR3ec038) and beyond.
Prefaces
The frontmatter of the 1679 edition preserves three prefaces — all dated 康熙己未 (1679):
- Preface 1 by 楊耀祖 Yáng Yàozǔ, 太原, dated 上巳後二日 (early third lunar month). Yáng was zhī Hújiāng wèi (commander at Hújiāng) and praises the work as “thought of as concise but comprehensive, clear but apt, careful and exact yet simply systematic” — the very book he had himself wished to compile.
- Preface 2 by 紀映鍾 Jì Yìngzhōng (hào Juǎnlóu Jūshì 卷婁居士). Frames the work in the language of Mòzǐ’s “great use through no-use” and Sū Shì’s dà yī wáng discussion.
- Preface 3 by 陳啟貞 Chén Qǐzhēn, “白沙友人”, 暮春.
Also included: 蔣雪洲 Jiǎng Xuězhōu’s editorial fánlì (printing conventions) explaining that he was bringing his father’s manuscript to press to fulfil filial obligation (“一以完先人仁壽之懷”).
Abstract
Jiǎng Jièfán (蔣介繁, fl. mid-17th c., no confident CBDB id), native of Xīn’ān 新安 (Huīzhōu, Ānhuī). A literatus-physician who never held office, characterised in the prefaces as a recluse-scholar of “Lùmén” (鹿門) and “Yānshān” (燕山) virtue. He compiled the Zé yào manuscript during his later years; his son 蔣雪洲 Jiǎng Xuězhōu raised the funds and saw it through the press after his father’s death.
The work’s significance is as the prototype of the Qīng clinical pharmacopoeia digest. Although it was soon superseded by Wāng Áng’s Běncǎo bèiyào (1694, fifteen years later, with a more accessible jué 訣 mnemonic structure) and the Bèiyào’s successors, the Zé yào is the first systematic attempt to make the Gāngmù usable for clinical work, and Wāng Áng’s Bèiyào in many places follows the Zé yào’s selection of essential substances. The Xīn’ān regional medical tradition to which Jiǎng belonged was one of the most active in the late-Míng and early-Qīng.
Translations and research
- Zhèng Jīnshēng 鄭金生. 2007. Yào lín wài shǐ 藥林外史. — discusses the Xīn’ān regional pharmacological tradition.
- Běncǎo zéyào gāngmù jiào diǎn 本草擇要綱目校點. 1999. Zhongguo zhongyiyao.
- No Western-language treatment.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草擇要綱目 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB