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五十二病方

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Text ID
KR3ed001
Date
-300–-168
Dynasty
秦

Wǔshí’èr Bìngfāng 五十二病方

Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments Anonymous Warring-States / early Western-Hàn medical recipe collection, recovered 1973 from Mǎwángduī tomb 3 (馬王堆三號墓).

About the work

The Wǔshí’èr bìngfāng is the earliest extant collection of medical recipes in the Chinese tradition, written on silk and buried in 168 BCE in the tomb of the Marquess of Dài’s son at Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 (Chángshā 長沙). Scholars (Harper 1998, Mǎ Jìxīng 1992) date the composition of the text proper to the late Warring States or the early Western Hàn — well before the recipes were copied onto the silk for burial. The catalog meta places it conservatively under 秦 (“Qín”); the bracket given here (c. 300–168 BCE) is the consensus composition window of the received text.

The work has no preface, no internal title, and no attributed author: the modern title was supplied by the editorial team of the Mǎwángduī Hànmù bóshū 馬王堆漢墓帛書 in the 1970s, taking the count from the 52 disease-categories listed in the manuscript’s table of contents (only some of which survive complete). Treatments include herbal decoctions, mineral and animal-product compounds, cauterisation and moxa, surgical interventions, and a substantial body of incantations and apotropaic charms (祝由 zhùyóu) — a body of “magical” therapy that the Hàn-era classical synthesis (the Huángdì nèijīng and the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng 神農本草經 KR3ec001) would marginalise.

Prefaces

The Mǎwángduī manuscript has no preface or postface; the silk opens directly with a list of disease titles followed by the recipe entries. The transmitted hxwd text reproduces the modern editorial transcription of the silk text complete with the round-bracket annotations of the Mǎwángduī Hànmù bóshū editorial committee — graphic variants given in parentheses next to the original character (e.g. 飲 for 飲, 信(伸) “extend”), reconstructed lacunae marked with 【】, and column-end numerals (n) keying the silk-strip positions.

Abstract

The Wǔshí’èr bìngfāng was discovered in late 1973 in Mǎwángduī tomb 3, the tomb of Lì Xī 利豨 (d. 168 BCE), son of Lì Cāng 利蒼, the Marquess of Dài 軑侯. Of the fifteen medical texts found there, the Bìngfāng is by far the longest and best preserved, containing about 9,950 characters across roughly 462 surviving silk columns. Donald Harper’s Early Chinese Medical Literature (1998) is the standard English-language critical study and translation.

The 52 disease-categories named in the table of contents range from injuries by metal weapons (金傷), wounds and lacerations (諸傷), seizures and spasms (傷痙), through abscesses and skin disorders, gynaecological and paediatric complaints, to demonic afflictions and bites (蠱). Of these, about 30 categories survive with substantive recipes. The text demonstrates that by the late Warring States, Chinese medicine had developed a sophisticated materia medica (drawing on roughly 250 substances — plant, animal, and mineral) and standard pharmacological methods (decoction, calcination 燔, parching 熬, powdering, mixing with wine or animal fat). It is also a unique witness to the integration of pharmaceutical and ritual / incantatory therapy in pre-classical Chinese medicine: many recipes are coupled with verbal formulae (e.g. “男子竭，女子酨” “the male is exhausted, the female is dried”) and ritual gestures such as drawing on the ground.

Because the Bìngfāng predates the Huángdì nèijīng tradition, its therapeutic logic is not built on the systematic yīnyáng / five-phase / channel-meridian framework of imperial medicine. It is a recipe book in the older “magico-medical” mode. The discovery thus reshaped the historiography of Chinese medicine, anchoring claims that the classical synthesis is a relatively late, scholastic construction overlaying a much older practical tradition. The catalog meta records no author (correctly: the text is anonymous tomb-find); editorial responsibility for the modern hxwd edition rests with the Mǎwángduī editorial committee.

Translations and research

  • Harper, Donald J. 1998. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series. London: Kegan Paul International. — Complete English translation and exhaustive philological study; the standard reference.
  • Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興. 1992. Mǎwángduī gǔ yīshū kǎoshì 馬王堆古醫書考釋. Húnán kēxué jìshù. — Standard modern Chinese critical edition.
  • Wèi Qǐpéng 魏啟鵬, ed. 1992. Mǎwángduī Hànmù yīshū jiàoshì 馬王堆漢墓醫書校釋. 2 vols. Chéngdū. — Collation and modern-Chinese translation.
  • Bridgman, R. F. 1981. “Les fonctions physiologiques chez l’homme dans la Chine antique.” T’oung Pao 67: 1–37 — early discussion in French.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §41.2 — bibliographic orientation.

Other points of interest

The Bìngfāng preserves the earliest attested use of moxibustion as part of a written medical recipe, the earliest mention of leprosy-like disease (癘風 / 大風) in a Chinese text, and the earliest extant Chinese surgical procedure (haemorrhoidectomy with knife and ligature). It also documents what may be the earliest Chinese use of mercury-sulphide (cinnabar 丹砂) and arsenic-bearing compounds (礜) in materia medica.

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