成方切用

Chéngfāng Qièyòng 成方切用

The Apt Use of Established Formulas by 吳儀洛 (Wú Yílù, c. 1704–c. 1766, 清) — author and editor

About the work

The Chéngfāng qièyòng is a major mid-Qiánlóng analytical formulary in 13 juǎn that collects c. 1,100 gǔjīn liángfāng 古今良方 (ancient and modern excellent recipes), arranged by 25 therapeutic categories. It was completed by Wú Yílù 吳儀洛 at his Lìjìtáng 利濟堂 studio at Xiáchuān 硤川 (in Hǎiyán 海鹽) in the winter of Qiánlóng xīnsì 辛巳 = 1761. The author’s stated aim is corrective: where Chéng Wújǐ 成無己 (Jīn) had only glossed Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s 113 formulas line-by-line, where Wú Hègāo 吳鶴皋 (Ming, 醫方考 KR3ed039) had divided his ~700 formulas into 70 over-fine categories, and where Wāng Áng 汪昂 had limited his Yīfāng jíjiě 醫方集解 (KR3ed076) to “ancient formulas only” with no new recipes, Wú combines the strengths of each: he both explains the underlying mechanism of disease for each category and gives the reasoning behind every prescription, and he extends the corpus by including post-Sòng and Míng “new formulas” (xīnfāng) on the same footing as classical ones.

Prefaces

The author’s own preface (= the editor’s preface) carries the date Qiánlóng xīnsì dōngyuè 乾隆辛巳冬月 = winter 1761, written at the Lìjìtáng 利濟堂, signature 澉水吳儀洛遵程 — Wú Yílù zì Zūnchéng of Gǎnshuǐ. The preface’s argument:

1. The Inner Classics are the marrow of medicine; recipes are its rough trace. Modern shíyī 時醫 (“contemporary physicians”) rush to transmit recipes without ever reading the Nèijīng; this is to abandon the marrow for the trace.
2. Recipes nevertheless cannot be discarded. A recipe is the fǎ (method) made concrete. A skilled artisan does not contradict his rule but works with it. The transmission of recipes from antiquity has been guarded as a jìnfāng 禁方 (sealed recipe): Biǎnquè 扁鵲 and Cánggōng 倉公 are both styled in the Shǐjì as transmitters of jìnfāng. Before the Hàn, established formulas were rare.
3. The history of formula-commentary. Zhāng Zhòngjǐng is the patriarch; Chéng Wújǐ first glossed the 113 formulas but only line-by-line. Wú Hègāo (Yīfāng kǎo) re-categorized by disease and was widely circulating, but his categorization was over-fine. Wāng Renʼān (= Wāng Áng) of recent times produced the Yīfāng jíjiě, surveying disease cause and drug intent; this was excellent but admitted only gǔfāng.
4. Wú’s editorial method. He took Wú Hègāo’s and Wāng Áng’s selections and increased and corrected, arriving at c. 1,100 gǔjīn liángfāng. He measured each against the classics, tested each against pathology, and made 13 juǎn, naming the work Chéngfāng qièyòng — “established formulas, apt in use.”
5. Diachronic decline of constitution. Citing the conventional doctrine that the qì of the universe has thinned with the passage of ages, Wú argues that Hàn formulas (Zhòngjǐng prescribing in liǎng 兩) were appropriate to a sturdier constitution, SòngYuán formulas (Lǐ Dōngyuán, Zhū Dānxī prescribing in qián 錢) to a thinner one; modern (Qīng) practice must temper, nourish, and warm-supplement rather than cleanse and chill. To “execute a fixed recipe in pursuit of unlimited symptoms” is a recipe for killing.

Abstract

The Chéngfāng qièyòng is the most influential mid-Qiánlóng analytical formulary and the third of the great Qing trilogy of fāngjí analytical works: Wāng Áng’s Yīfāng jíjiě (KR3ed076, 1682), Wú Yílù’s Chéngfāng qièyòng (1761), and Fèi Bóxióng’s Yīfāng lùn (KR3ed079, 1865). Where Wāng restricted himself to gǔfāng, Wú deliberately incorporated late-Sòng, Yuán and Míng “new formulas,” and where Fèi Bóxióng wrote a polemical commentary on Wāng, Wú wrote a constructive expansion. The work’s 25 thematic divisions — beginning with Nèijīng formulas, then qì, blood, bǔyǎng (nourishing), sègù (astringing and fixing), fābiǎo (releasing the exterior), yǒngtù (vomiting), gōnglǐ (attacking the interior), xiāodǎo (dispersing), héjiě (mediating), biǎolǐ (interior-exterior), and so on through women, children, ulcers, and emergencies — became a standard pedagogical scheme for QiánlóngJiāqìng physicians.

The 1761 date is precise: the preface is dated to the month. The work was printed at Wú’s own Lìjìtáng and rapidly spread; mid-Qīng physicians from Yè Tiānshì’s lineage down through Wáng Xùgāo 王旭高 cite Chéngfāng qièyòng by name. The text remains a standard reference in TCM education today and circulates in multiple modern punctuated editions.

Translations and research

• Wú Yílù. Chéngfāng qièyòng (modern punctuated editions: Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè 人民衛生出版社, 1958, 1989; further reprints in the Wú Yílù yīxué quánshū 吳儀洛醫學全書).
• The work has not been translated in full into a Western language. Selected formulas are cited in Bensky, Clavey, & Stöger, Chinese Herbal Medicine: Formulas & Strategies, 2nd ed. (Eastland, 2009).

Other points of interest

Wú’s preface is one of the earliest clear articulations of the “diachronic constitutional decline” doctrine in formula-theoretic terms: the explicit recognition that prescribing dosage itself must be historicized — that Hàn-era liǎng and Sòng-Yuán-era qián reflect different anthropological norms. This becomes the standard rationale for late-Qing qīngbǔ (light-supplementing) prescribing.

Links

• Wikidata Q67116541 (Chéngfāng qièyòng).
• 成方切用 jicheng.tw
• Kanseki DB