博濟方

Bójì Fāng 博濟方

Recipes for Wide Relief (also Wángshì bójì fāng 王氏博濟方) by 王袞 (Wáng Gǔn, 1037–1078, 北宋) — Northern-Sòng physician of Tàiyuán 太原, Wine Inspector (酒官) at Qiántáng 錢塘 (Hángzhōu)

About the work

The Bójì fāng is a Northern-Sòng personal-experience clinical formulary in 5 juǎn, completed during Wáng Gǔn’s 慶曆 (1041–1048) posting at Huátái 滑臺 (where his father held office) and his subsequent Qiántáng tenure. Wáng’s autograph preface explains the editorial method: out of seven thousand recipes accumulated over twenty years of practice and inheritance, he selected approximately 500 most-effective and most clinically reliable for inclusion, organising them by ailment and prefacing each section with notes on disease presentation, pulse signs, and aetiology. His openly didactic aim — to make medical knowledge intelligible to non-specialists while remaining useful to professionals — characterises the work as a humble counter-example to the prevailing practice of esoteric retention (jiān ér mì zhī 緘而秘之, “to seal it up and keep it secret”) among physicians of his day.

Prefaces

Two prefaces and the Sìkù tíyào head the work in the hxwd transmission:

1. 郎簡 序 by Láng Jiǎn 郎簡 — patron / sponsor preface. Láng records that he had spent decades of official service collecting and verifying effective recipes from chance encounters and bequeathed manuscripts. When Wáng Gǔn, then jiǔguān 酒官 of Qiántáng, visited him in the spring and showed him three booklets of his own collection, Láng was so impressed that he added some thirty further recipes from his own materials and wrote a preface to support the printing. The preface positions the work in the Confucian moral framework of bóshī jìzhòng 博施濟眾 (“to bestow widely and relieve the multitude”).
2. 自序 by 王袞 — Wáng Gǔn’s autograph preface. Sets out his editorial method: starting from the Bencao and the Zhōulǐ 周禮 medical-office references, lamenting that excellent recipe books fail to circulate because their authors keep them secret, narrating his own family medical history (his accompanying his father on official travel to Huátái, where the father fell ill and was botched by an ignorant physician; his mother’s chronic illnesses), and the resolution that grew from these experiences. He selected 500-odd recipes from his collection of 7,000.
3. 提要 — Sìkù imperial summary, in 5 juǎn. The Sìkù editors note that Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武’s Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 records 5 juǎn while Sòngshǐ yìwénzhì and Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫’s Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 record 3 juǎn (the discrepancy a 三/五 transcription error). They also correct Cháo’s confusion of Wáng Gǔn with his father at Huátái. Cháo praises the work’s clinical effectiveness, particularly the Cǎohuándān 草還丹 for dàfēng 大風 (chronic skin disease, possibly leprosy) and the Tàiyǐdān 太乙丹 for guǐtāi 鬼胎 (anomalous pregnancy).

Abstract

Wáng Gǔn (1037–1078, CBDB 38043) was from Tàiyuán 太原. His career details are sparse — the surviving record names only his Qiántáng wine-office tenure — but his composition method as set out in his preface puts him solidly in the empirical-clinical tradition of mid-Northern-Sòng physician-scholars. The work’s clinical reliability was respected enough for the Tàipíng huìmín héjìjú fāng 太平惠民和劑局方 (KR3ed011) to draw on it, and several of its signature recipes — Cǎohuándān, Tàiyǐdān, Xìnxiào dān 信效丹 — were widely transmitted in subsequent Sòng formularies.

The Bójì fāng is principally significant as a Northern-Sòng example of the physician’s personal experience formulary (shīfāng / xiànfāng genre), produced by a mid-career physician of moderate but not exalted social rank, contrasting with the imperial-commission scale of the Tàipíng shènghuì fāng (KR3ed007) and the Shèngjì zǒnglù (KR3ed012). Its preservation in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 enabled its inclusion in the Sìkù quánshū and ensured its modern reception.

Translations and research

• Hé Shíxī 何時希. 1991. Sòng-Yuán yīxué wénxiàn yánjiū 宋元醫學文獻研究. — devotes a chapter to the Bójì fāng.
• Wáng Sūilín 王綏霖 (coll.). 1959. Bójì fāng 博濟方 (modern punctuated edition). Beijing.
• Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200. Routledge. — places the Bójì fāng in the genre map of Sòng formulary production.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §41.3.2 — bibliographic orientation.

Other points of interest

Wáng’s autobiographical observation — that his interest in medicine was sparked by his father’s near-fatal mistreatment at the hands of an ignorant practitioner — is one of the most explicit Sòng-era statements of the “medicine as filial duty” yībùzhīyī 醫不知醫 motif that would become a literary topos in later doctor-scholar prefaces.

Links

• Wikidata Q11077117 (博濟方).
• Wikipedia (zh): 博濟方.
• Sìkù quánshū sub-stitute base text.
• 博濟方 jicheng.tw
• Kanseki DB