Yàoxìng Qièyòng 藥性切用
Drug Natures for Practical Use by 徐大椿 (Xú Dàchūn, zì Língtāi 靈胎, hào Huí xī lǎo rén 迴溪老人, 1693–1771, 清)
About the work
The Yàoxìng qièyòng is one of Xú Dàchūn’s two major pharmacological works (the other being the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng bǎi zhǒng lù KR3ec048). Where the Bǎi zhǒng lù is a critical exegetical commentary on 100 Běnjīng substances, the Qièyòng is the practical counterpart — a working clinical pharmacopoeia for daily use, organised so that a physician can rapidly identify which substance to deploy for a given indication and how to dose it.
The work in 6 juǎn covers approximately 600 substances. The organisational principle is signalled in the title: qiè yòng — “directly applicable in practice”. Each substance entry is highly condensed: nature/味/channel-entry, primary indications, contraindications, and dosage. Xú strips away the natural-history apparatus, the synonymy, and the míng 名 elucidations that bulk out the Gāngmù and its successors. The result is a pharmacopoeia that can be read like a clinical formulary. This corresponds to Xú’s broader programme — the Yīxué yuán liú lùn 醫學源流論 (1757), the Shānghán lùn lèi fāng (reorganising the Shānghán by formula-class), and the Bǎi zhǒng lù all share the same instinct: take the received material and reorganise it for clinical effectiveness.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. Standard editions preserve Xú’s own preface — undated but conventionally placed mid-18th century — explaining the qiè yòng programme.
Abstract
Xú Dàchūn (徐大椿, 1693–1771, CBDB 61225), the dominant mid-Qīng medical thinker. Native of Wújiāng 吳江 (Sūzhōu prefecture, Jiāngsū). See his person note for full biographical detail.
The Qièyòng is less famous than the Bǎi zhǒng lù but had wider clinical influence. The Bǎi zhǒng lù was a scholar’s book — a careful philological commentary read mainly by other physicians of the fǎngǔ school; the Qièyòng was a practitioner’s book, read at the bedside. It is one of the principal mid-Qīng clinical-pharmacopoeia models alongside 汪昂 Wāng Áng’s Bèiyào (1694) and the much later 吳儀洛 Wú Yílò’s Cóngxīn (1757). Several of Xú’s pharmacological dicta were absorbed into the standard late-Qīng working tradition through the Qièyòng rather than the Bǎi zhǒng lù.
Translations and research
- Unschuld, Paul U. 1990. Forgotten Traditions of Ancient Chinese Medicine: The Yi-xue yuan-liu lun of Xu Dachun. Paradigm. — full translation of one of Xú’s other works with extensive biographical introduction.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2003. Yīxué wǔshí jiā. — chapter on Xú.
- Xú Dàchūn yīxué quánshū 徐大椿醫學全書. 1999. Zhongguo zhongyiyao.
- No standalone Western-language translation of the Yàoxìng qièyòng.
Links
- Wikidata: Q11078313 (Xú Dàchūn).
- 藥性切用 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB