Yīfāng Lùn 醫方論
Discourses on Medical Formulas by 費伯雄 (Fèi Bóxióng, 1800–1879, leader of the late-Qīng Mènghé 孟河 school)
About the work
The Yīfāng lùn is a 4-juǎn polemical formulary by Fèi Bóxióng 費伯雄 of Mènghé, the founding figure of the modern Mènghé clinical school. The work is the companion piece to his earlier Yī chún shèng yì 醫醇剩義 (Surplus Meaning of Pure Medicine, 1863–1865), which articulated his programmatic doctrine of chún 醇 (“pure,” “well-fermented”) medicine. The Yīfāng lùn is a commentary on Wāng Áng’s Yīfāng jíjiě KR3ed076: Fèi reads through the formulas of the Jíjiě one by one, appending a Bóxióng yuē “Bóxióng says” comment on the suitability or unsuitability of each formula for late-Qīng clinical practice.
Prefaces
The author’s own preface, at the head of the source:
欲救人而學醫則可，欲謀利而學醫則不可。我若有疾，望醫之救我者何如？我之父母妻子有疾，望醫之相救者何如？易地以觀，則利心自澹矣！
(“To learn medicine to save people is acceptable; to learn medicine to seek profit is not. If I am sick, how do I look at the physician who would save me? If my parents, wife, or children are sick, how do I look at the physician who would save them? Reverse the standpoint and the heart for profit cools.“)
The preface continues: medicine, though a xiǎodào “minor way,” carries the highest moral stakes; a single careless gesture can determine life and death. After the recent wars (the Tàipíng campaigns), the lǎochéng (experienced senior physicians) have mostly perished; new physicians multiply without proper shīchéng (lineage transmission), guided by their own opinions. In his earlier Yī chún shèng yì, Fèi raised the standard of chún 醇 “purity” — not in the sense of miracle-cures but in the sense of correctness of the medical principle: even Zhòngjǐng’s three chéngqìtāng purges, fierce as they are, embody chún in their proper context because they save life in true emergency.
The preface then narrows on the present work: country physicians rely on the Yīfāng jíjiě as their bedside scripture and apply it formula-by-formula at consultation. But of the formulas in the Jíjiě, “many are usable, but not a few are unusable; without discrimination this is a grass-cutting of human lives” (草菅人命). Fèi has therefore appended his own evaluation to each formula in the Jíjiě, marking which are sound and which are not.
Abstract
The Yīfāng lùn is one of the most important polemical contributions to the late-Qīng formulary debate. Fèi Bóxióng’s programmatic chún 醇 doctrine — that the value of a formula lies in the correctness of its medical principle, not in its novelty, severity, or theatricality — is one of the clearest statements of conservative zhèngzōng (orthodox-lineage) clinical thinking in the late Qīng. His critique of the Yīfāng jíjiě is particularly sharp on formulas he considers overly aggressive for late-Qīng constitutions (which he agrees with Wú Yílù 吳儀洛 are thinner than the constitutions of the ancients) and on formulas he considers conceptually muddled (combining drugs of incompatible action).
The work’s effect on subsequent practice was significant: through Mǎ Péizhī 馬培之 (Fèi’s leading disciple), the chún doctrine reached Mǎ’s grand-disciple Dīng Gānrén 丁甘仁 and became one of the foundational ethical-clinical commitments of the modern Shanghai school of Chinese medicine.
The 1865 date is conventional and is supported by Fèi’s reference to his own Yī chún shèng yì as recent and his framing of the work within the post-Tàipíng “recovery” context.
Translations and research
- Fèi Bóxióng. Fèi Bóxióng yīxué quánshū 費伯雄醫學全書 (modern punctuated edition: Beijing: Zhōngguó Zhōngyīyào chūbǎnshè, 1999). Includes both Yī chún shèng yì and Yīfāng lùn.
- Volker Scheid. Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland Press, 2007). Chapter 6 treats Fèi Bóxióng’s chún doctrine and the Mèng-hé school.
Other points of interest
Fèi’s articulation of the chún 醇 doctrine — that the medical principle, not the spectacle, determines the value of a formula — is one of the most quoted statements in modern Chinese medical ethics. Even Zhòngjǐng’s most aggressive purging formulas (the Chéngqì tāng) embody chún because they save life in genuine emergency; the chún of light qīngbǔ and chún of severe purging are united by their correctness-of-principle.
Links
- Wikidata Q67137047 (Yīfāng lùn).
- Wikipedia (zh) 費伯雄
- 醫方論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB