活人事證方後集

Huórén Shìzhèng Fāng Hòují 活人事證方後集

People-Saving Case-Story Recipes, Second Collection by 劉信甫 (Liú Xìnfǔ, fl. late 12th – early 13th c., 南宋) — Southern-Sòng physician

About the work

The Huórén shìzhèng fāng hòují is the continuation of an earlier Huórén shìzhèng fāng 活人事證方 by the same compiler. The two works together constitute Liú Xìnfǔ’s complete formulary in roughly 40 juǎn, of which the Hòují (Second Collection) survives in 20 juǎn; the original Qiánjí (First Collection) is also extant in part. The hxwd recension transmits the Hòují portion.

The work’s name explicitly invokes two earlier traditions: (i) the Huórén shū 活人書 of Zhū Hóng 朱肱 (1118), the standard Southern-Sòng Shānghán reference, and (ii) the Běnshì fāng 本事方 / case-history method of Xǔ Shūwēi (KR3ed015). Liú’s combination of these two influences produces a syndrome-organised formulary in which each recipe is accompanied by an explicit zhèng 證 (presentation-syndrome) discussion and where many recipes carry a case-story or a transmission attribution (e.g. “Sòng Yònghé 孫用和’s recipes for the four seasons”, “the Dàfángfēng tāng given to the monk Rúzhēn Sūn Suìliáng 如真師孫遂良 by Lǐ 二十七 the official in Huáidōng 淮東 in shàoxī rénzǐ 紹熙壬子 = 1192”).

Prefaces

The hxwd transmission opens directly into the medical text without an extended preface section.

Abstract

Liú Xìnfǔ 劉信甫 (fl. late 12th – early 13th c.; not in CBDB) was a Southern-Sòng physician whose biographical record is entirely confined to his own work. His chronological anchor — the 紹熙壬子 (1192) clinical-anecdote in juǎn 1 — suggests a working career through the late Guāngzōng / early Níngzōng reigns. The conventional date for completion of the Hòují is jiādìng bǐngzǐ 嘉定丙子 (1216), giving the date bracket used in the frontmatter.

The work’s distinctive features:

1. Hybrid case-history and syndrome-formulary structure. Each mén opens with a lùn by reference to Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn / Zhū Hóng’s Huórén shū / the Sùwèn tradition, then lists recipes with explicit zhèng indications; many recipes are paired with documented clinical cases or transmission stories.
2. Strong gynaecological and paediatric sections — drawing on the Sòng tradition since Chén Zìmíng (KR3ed020).
3. Preservation of recipes attributed to specific Sòng-era physicians — Sūn Yònghé 孫用和 (likely Sūn Yònghé / Sūn Yìnghé, an early Northern-Sòng physician), several otherwise-unrecorded family-traditions, and the Wúzhōu 吳州 / Huáidōng 淮東 / Língnán 嶺南 regional medical informants.

The Hòují was widely cited in late-Sòng and Yuán formularies but lost its independent circulation in the Ming; it survives mainly in Sìkù-era reconstructions from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The hxwd recension is the standard modern access.

Translations and research

• Hé Shíxī 何時希 (coll.). 1990. Huórén shìzhèng fāng hòují 活人事證方後集 (punctuated edition).
• Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200. Routledge — for the broader Southern-Sòng formulary context.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §41.3.2.

Other points of interest

The Hòují’s use of explicit dating — naming particular shàoxī / qìngyuán / jiādìng year-month references for individual clinical cases — makes it one of the most precisely dated Sòng physicians’ formularies. The 1192 Dàfángfēng tāng 大防風湯 case (the monk Rúzhēn Sūn Suìliáng’s recovery from post-dysentery rheumatic deformation) is among the most often-quoted Sòng clinical anecdotes.

Links

• Wikidata: no dedicated entry.
• Wikipedia (zh): 活人事證方後集.
• 活人事證方後集 jicheng.tw
• Kanseki DB