Yàolùn 藥論
Treatise on Drugs edited by 沈文彬 (Shěn Wénbīn, biéhào Xìngyuàn 杏苑, fl. late 19th – early 20th c., 清), incorporating earlier notes by 高鼓峰 (Gāo Gǔfēng, 1623–1670) and 吳澹園 (Wú Dànyuán, dates unknown)
About the work
The Yàolùn is a late-Qīng compact clinical pharmacopoeia compiled by Shěn Wénbīn in Shànghǎi and printed in 光緒二十七年 (1901). It is not an original composition but a critical merger of two earlier manuscripts: the Yàolùn informal pharmacological notes of the early-Qīng Yīnxiàn 鄞縣 physician 高鼓峰 Gāo Gǔfēng (Gāo Dǒukuí 高斗魁, 1623–1670), and the Yàonéng 藥能 of 吳澹園 Wú Dànyuán. Shěn’s own preface (excerpted here from the surviving text) gives the compilation history:
“I [Shěn] was dull by nature and lost my elementary training young. At my coming-of-age I was apprenticed to Master Xú, who taught me to read the Nèijīng and Nánjīng. … I overheard the master saying: ‘In reading books one must first know the characters; in studying medicine one must first know the natures of the drugs.’ Lǐ’s Gāngmù is beautiful, complete; but the beginner is always pained by its prolixity. … In a Shànghǎi bookshop I happened upon Master 高鼓峰 Gāo Gǔfēng’s Yàolùn notes. I felt that its diction was concise yet its uses complete; it really was the ferry-bridge for beginners — but the drugs treated were too few, not enough for daily use. In the xīnchǒu year [1901] I also obtained the Yàonéng book from my in-law Mister 吳澹園 Wú Dànyuán … I melted them together in one furnace, compared their faults, and produced what is truly a sea-crossing raft of compassion, a treasure of the medical house.”
The work in 1 juǎn organises substances into five clinical classes — 補劑 (replenishing), 散劑 (dispersing), 瀉劑 (purgative), 血劑 (blood drugs), 雜劑 (miscellaneous) — each further subdivided by therapeutic action. Approximately 350 substances are treated, each in highly condensed parallel prose that can be read like a mnemonic jué 訣. The work also appends the standard shíbā fǎn 十八反 and shíjiǔ wèi 十九畏 mnemonics of drug incompatibility. It is one of the late-Qīng’s principal beginner pharmacopoeias, designed to be memorised by apprentice physicians.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves Shěn’s own preface (光緒二十七年二月, 1901) prefaced to the substance body. The preface explicitly names the two source manuscripts and explains the merger method.
Abstract
Shěn Wénbīn (沈文彬, fl. late 19th – early 20th c., no confident CBDB id), studio-name 鑄青草廬, biéhào Xìngyuàn 杏苑. He was a Shànghǎi-based late-Qīng physician of the Sūzhōu medical tradition, in the doctrinal line of Xú Dàchūn (the “徐夫子” of his preface is not Xú Dàchūn himself — Dàchūn died in 1771 — but a late-Qīng successor in his tradition).
高鼓峰 Gāo Gǔfēng (Gāo Dǒukuí 高斗魁, 1623–1670), the original author of the core Yàolùn material, was a Yīnxiàn (Níngbō) physician of the early Qīng, best known for his Sì míng xīn fǎ 四明心法. The Yàolùn notes appear to have been compiled by his students from informal teaching memoranda rather than written by Gāo himself as a finished work; Shěn’s printing rescued them from obscurity.
The work’s significance is as a witness to the late-Qīng / early-Republican pedagogical pharmacopoeia: a compact, mnemonically organised primer aimed at clinical apprentices rather than at scholars. It belongs in the same teaching genre as the Yàoxìng fù 藥性賦 tradition (KR3ec015 KR3ec016) but with parallel prose rather than rhymed verse.
Translations and research
- No substantial modern critical edition located.
- No Western-language treatment.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 藥論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB