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御藥院方

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Text ID
KR3ed025
Date
1267–1267
Dynasty
元

Yùyàoyuàn Fāng 御藥院方

Recipes of the Imperial Pharmacy imperially commissioned and revised by 許國禎 (Xǔ Guózhēn, fl. mid-13th c., 元) — Yuán senior court physician

About the work

The Yùyàoyuàn fāng in 11 juǎn is the imperial-pharmacy formulary of the early Yuán dynasty, finalised in 至元丁卯八月九日 (= autumn 1267). It is the Yuán successor to the Sòng Tàipíng huìmín héjì júfāng (KR3ed011) — the Mongols, on conquering the Jin and Sòng, inherited those imperial-pharmacy traditions, established their own Yùyàoyuàn 御藥院 (Imperial Pharmacy Office), and consolidated the inherited and newly-collected recipes into the present compilation. The prefacing official Gāo Míng 高鳴 (a Hànlín zhíxuéshì of Hédōng 河東) explicitly compares the Yùyàoyuàn fāng to the Huángdì nèijīng and the Biǎnquè bāshíyī nán — i.e. as a canonical reference text of the dynasty’s medical tradition.

The work draws on (i) the inherited Sòng Húmínjú / Héjìjú recipe stock, (ii) the Jurchen Jin Yùyàoyuàn recipe stock (the previous dynasty’s imperial pharmacy), (iii) newly-collected Mongol-Chinese medical materials, and (iv) the personal experience of Xǔ Guózhēn and his colleagues. Recipes are organised by ailment and standardised for institutional dispensing.

Prefaces

A single preface:

  • 御藥院方序 by Gāo Míng 高鳴 (Hànlín zhíxuéshì, of Hédōng), dated 至元丁卯八月九日 (= 1267). Gāo records that Tàiyī tídiǎn 太醫提點 Rónglù Xǔgōng 榮祿許公 (= Xǔ Guózhēn) and several colleagues recovered the rényín (1242) Jurchen Jin Yùyàoyuàn woodblocks of the inherited recipe formulary, corrected the errors, filled the lacunae, sought out lost material, and added newly-collected recipes. The framing rhetoric is classical: “from Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s Shānghán lùn onward, hundreds of formularies have been compiled, but the Yùyàoyuàn is the most comprehensive” — claiming canonical status for the imperial pharmacy’s collection.

Abstract

Xǔ Guózhēn 許國禎 (zì Jìnzhī 進之; fl. mid-13th c., precise dates uncertain; not securely matched in CBDB) was a senior Yuán court physician of Cízhōu 磁州 (modern Hébei) origin. He served Khubilai Khan as Tàiyī tídiǎn 太醫提點 (Director of the Imperial Medical Office) and was honoured with the senior rank Rónglù dàifū 榮祿大夫. He is recorded in the Yuán shǐ j. 168 as a confidant of Khubilai and his consort Chabi, and credited with treating Empress Chabi’s serious illness; Khubilai is said to have conferred the Tàiyī tídiǎn directorship as a reward.

The work’s significance:

  1. Multi-dynastic textual transmission. The 1267 Yùyàoyuàn fāng is the result of two-stage transmission: from Sòng Júfāng → Jurchen Jin Yùyàoyuàn (1242 rényín edition) → Yuán Yùyàoyuàn (1267 revision). The text therefore captures the Sòng pharmaceutical tradition mediated through Jurchen and Mongol institutional channels — a rare example of pre-modern Chinese pharmaceutical content surviving across three dynasties’ institutional continuity.
  2. Institutional dispensing standardisation. Like the Júfāng, the Yùyàoyuàn fāng serves as the dispensing manual for state pharmacies; its recipes are calibrated for industrial-scale compounding.
  3. Yuán imperial medical patronage. The work is the textual embodiment of the Mongol imperial decision to continue Sòng-style state medical-welfare patronage rather than dismantling it — a significant decision in the political-cultural integration of conquering Mongol and conquered Sòng-Han populations.

The bracket 1267 is the precise date of Gāo Míng’s preface; the underlying recipe stock spans the Sòng-Jin-Yuán continuum 1078–1267.

Translations and research

  • Hé Shíxī 何時希 (coll.). 1992. Yù-yào-yuàn fāng 御藥院方 (punctuated edition). Beijing.
  • Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200. Routledge. — for the Sòng-Jin-Yuán institutional transmission.
  • Buell, Paul D. and Eugene N. Anderson. 2010. A Soup for the Qan. 2nd ed. Brill. — Mongol-era medical context.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §41.3.2.

Other points of interest

The Yùyàoyuàn fāng preserves the formula and dispensing protocol for Niúhuáng qīngxīn wán 牛黃清心丸 in essentially the form still used in modern TCM pharmacy — a continuous 800-year transmission of an imperial-pharmacy recipe. The same is true of Sūhé xiāng wán 蘇合香丸 and several other standard yànjì 驗劑 institutional recipes.

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