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醫方考

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Text ID
KR3ed039
Date
1584–1584
Dynasty
明

Yīfāng Kǎo 醫方考

Investigations of Medical Recipes by 吳昆 (Wú Kūn, 1552–1620, zì Shānfǔ 山甫, hào Lǘshānzǐ 鶴皋, 明) — late-Ming physician-scholar of Xīzhōu 歙州 (Xīn’ān 新安, modern Ānhuī)

About the work

The Yīfāng Kǎo in 6 juǎn is one of the most intellectually serious of all pre-modern Chinese theoretical-medical commentaries on recipes. Wú Kūn 吳昆 (1552–1620) selected approximately 700 prescriptions from the inherited tradition and produced, for each one, a six-part investigation:

  1. 考其方藥 — investigation of the drug components.
  2. 考其見證 — investigation of the indicated syndrome / presentation.
  3. 考其名義 — investigation of the prescription’s name (etymology, meaning, allusion).
  4. 考其事蹟 — investigation of the historical case-trace (which physician used this with which patient).
  5. 考其變通 — investigation of the prescription’s permitted modifications.
  6. 考其得失 — investigation of where the prescription has worked and failed.
  7. 考其所以然之故 — investigation of the theoretical reason for the prescription’s efficacy.

This seven-fold kǎo investigative method is the most rigorous Ming-era treatment of the relationship between medical theory and pharmaceutical practice. Wú’s polemical position — set out in the autograph preface — is that “the jīng (classical-theoretical literature) is the deep doctrine of medicine; fāng (recipes) are the coarse derivative” (經論，醫之奧者…方，醫之粗也). The age has reversed this priority, treating recipes as the substance of medicine and ignoring the classical-theoretical literature. Wú’s kǎo method aims to re-establish the priority by anchoring each recipe in its classical-theoretical justification.

Prefaces

A single preface by Wú Kūn himself, dated 皇明萬曆十二年歲次甲申孟冬月 (= early winter 1584), signed Gǔ Xī Wú Kūn 古歙吳昆. The preface develops three points:

  1. The decline of classical-theoretical medicine. Physicians today learn by reciting recipes; the classical jīng literature is ignored.
  2. Wú’s autobiographical preparation. He began his medical study at age 15; he is now 33 (i.e. born 1552, writing 1584); for 18 years he has been studying the jīng literature, then travelling and seeking out master physicians of his age. He found “nine out of ten are inferior craftsmen; one out of ten is excellent.”
  3. The kǎo method as a corrective. By investigating each recipe through the seven-fold analysis, Wú aims to demonstrate that recipe-knowledge without theoretical knowledge is poisonous. The preface closes with the modest hope that yú zhī yī niàn “my one thought of saving people” might serve those in remote and impoverished areas who cannot reach a competent physician quickly.

Abstract

Wú Kūn 吳昆 (1552–1620, zì Shānfǔ 山甫, hào Lǘshānzǐ 鶴皋 / Xiē Shān 解山; CBDB id uncertain). Native of Xīzhōu 歙州 (Xīn’ān 新安 prefecture, modern southern Ānhuī) — one of the major late-Ming Confucian-medical milieux that also produced Fāng Yǒuzhí 方有執, Wāng Áng 汪昂 (KR3ed076 / KR3ed077 / KR3ed083), and many other significant late-Ming medical theorists. He is most famous for the Yīfāng kǎo and for an important paediatric monograph, the Yī Xián 鶚仙.

The work’s significance:

  1. Foundational Ming-era theoretical pharmacology. The Yīfāng kǎo is the most rigorous Ming-era attempt to subordinate practical pharmacology to classical-theoretical reasoning, anticipating the later Qīng kǎojù 考據 evidential-research school’s textual-historical methods.
  2. Influence on subsequent recipe-commentaries. Wú Kūn’s seven-fold kǎo method was the explicit model for Wāng Áng’s Yīfāng jíjiě 醫方集解 (KR3ed076), Fèi Bóxióng 費伯雄’s Yīfāng lùn 醫方論 (KR3ed079), and many other Qīng-era recipe-investigation works.
  3. Late-Ming Xīn’ān medical milieu. The work documents a particularly intellectually-serious moment in the late-Ming Xīn’ān medical tradition, where Confucian classicist scholarship and medical-theoretical investigation were tightly integrated.

Translations and research

  • Hé Shíxī 何時希 (coll.). 1990. Yīfāng kǎo 醫方考 (punctuated edition).
  • Hanson, Marta. 2011. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge.
  • Scheid, Volker. 2007. Currents of Tradition. Eastland — for the Xīn’ān medical context.
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §41.3.2.

Other points of interest

Wú Kūn’s preface invokes the Mencian topos yóu yú shèngrén zhī ménzhě nánwéi yányǐ 遊於聖人之門者難為言矣 (“for those who have studied at the gate of the sages, words come hard”) to acknowledge that his work will seem unnecessary to those who already prefer classical theory to recipes. This is a characteristic Ming-Confucian-medical literary gesture, deflating the work’s own importance even while making its strongest case.

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