Běncǎo Zhèngyì 本草正義
The Correct Sense of the Materia Medica by 張壽頤 (Zhāng Shòuyí, zì Shānléi 山雷, 1873–1934, 民國)
About the work
The Běncǎo zhèngyì is the principal Republican-era critical pharmacopoeia and the immediate predecessor of the modern PRC TCM materia medica curriculum. Zhāng Shòuyí composed it from his pharmacology lectures at the Lánxī Zhōngyī Zhuānménxuéxiào 蘭谿中醫專門學校 during the 1910s and 1920s; the work was printed in 1932, two years before his death. The title — zhèng yì “correct sense” — programmatically asserts that the centuries of late-imperial pharmacological commentary had introduced errors and inconsistencies, and that Zhāng’s purpose is to restore the correct doctrine of each substance.
The work covers approximately 270 of the most clinically important substances. For each, Zhāng’s method is critical-historical: he gives the Běnjīng core text, surveys the major commentaries from Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 through the Sòng catalogers (KR3ec009) to the Qīng jīngfāng school (Zōu Shù 鄒澍, Zhōu Yán 周巖), adjudicates the major disputes, and offers his own assessment grounded in jīngfāng clinical experience. The result is the most theoretically careful pharmacopoeia of its generation, and the principal pre-PRC bridge between the late-imperial and the modern TCM pharmacological literature.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body in two juan. Standard editions preserve Zhāng’s own preface and editorial conventions explaining the zhèng yì method.
Abstract
Zhāng Shòuyí (張壽頤, 1873–1934, no confident CBDB id), zì Shānléi 山雷. Native of Jiādìng 嘉定 (now in Shànghǎi). He was a key figure in the early-Republican movement to establish formal Chinese-medicine colleges: he taught at the Lánxī school from c. 1916 onwards, training a generation of physicians who carried the jīngfāng tradition into the PRC era. He also published the Zhōngfēng kǎo 中風斠詮 (a major treatise on stroke pathology) and the Shānléi yīxué cóngshū 山雷醫學叢書 collection.
The Zhèngyì’s significance is as the principal Republican-era pharmacopoeia and the textual model for the standard PRC Zhōngyào xué 中藥學 college textbooks compiled from the 1950s onwards. The substance entries in the major modern textbooks (the various editions of the Zhōngyào xué national teaching plan) follow Zhāng’s organisational principles and frequently cite his adjudications of doctrinal dispute.
Translations and research
- Lei, Sean Hsiang-lin. 2014. Neither Donkey nor Horse. UCP. — chapter on the Republican TCM-school movement.
- Andrews, Bridie. 2014. The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960. UBC Press.
- Běncǎo zhèngyì (1932 edition; many modern reprints — standard reference edition Renmin weisheng 2006).
- No Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草正義 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB