退思集類方歌註

Tuìsī Jí Lèifāng Gēzhù 退思集類方歌註

Annotated Rhymed Verses on Categorised Formulas from the Tuìsī Jí by 王泰林 (Wáng Tàilín = Wáng Xùgāo 王旭高, 1798–1862, 清)

About the work

The Tuìsī jí lèifāng gēzhù is the most ambitious of Wáng Xùgāo’s rhymed-formulary works, 8 juǎn in the Wáng Xùgāo yīshū liùzhǒng posthumous collection of 1862. Its title combines Wáng’s studio-name (Tuìsī jí 退思集, the collected works of the “Recluse-of-Reflection-in-Retirement”) with the lèifāng (category-and-variation formulary) method developed by Xú Língtāi 徐靈胎 (1693–1771) in his Shānghán lèifāng 傷寒類方 of 1759.

Prefaces

The source carries an exceptionally informative editorial preface by the publishing editor of the Wáng Xùgāo yīshū liùzhǒng, recounting the work’s manuscript-history:

1. Recognition. “Tuìsī jí lèifāng gēzhù and Yīfāng zhèngzhì huìbiān gējué — these two books were composed by my fellow-villager Mr. Wáng Xùgāo. The Master’s name is Tàilín, zì Xùgāo, late hào Tuìsī jūshì.”
2. Sources for Wáng’s biography. “Liǔ Bǎoyí 柳寶詒 of Jiāngyīn, in compiling Wáng’s Yī àn (case-records), praised the Master’s learning: ‘In the classical texts he sought ancient meanings; in later writers he carefully distinguished similar from dissimilar.‘” Wáng’s known works: Xīxī shūwū yèhuà lù 西溪書屋夜話錄, Yīfāng gējué chuànjiě 醫方歌訣串解, Huánxī cǎotáng yīàn 環溪草堂醫案 — these are recorded as not yet printed.
3. The disciple-edition story. “Now the yīàn has been brought into print by Jīng Gēnghé 經耕霞 and Liǔ Bǎoyí, and circulates in the world; the other works could not be obtained though sought.”
4. Recovery. “In the yǐmǎo winter [= 1855 by the conventional cycle counting from Wáng’s death in 1862; possibly 1855], Huá Sōngyán 華松岩 gave me a bundle of manuscript-drafts, saying he had kept them hidden for many years.”
5. The damaged condition. “Earlier, in Dōngfángqiáo, there had been a student of the Master’s who in old age suddenly fell into a wild fit and threw the various manuscripts he was copying into the water. Huájūn could rescue only two manuscripts of formula-verses, both damaged and incomplete.”
6. The repair. “I do not understand rhymed prosody, so I posted the manuscript to Lù Jìnshēng 陸晉笙 in Shānxī asking him to make repairs. According to him the beginning and end fortunately remained intact — only one page before the Zhīzǐ chǐ tāng 梔子豉湯 entry was missing, which he restored by reference to the Shānghán and Jīnguì originals.”
7. The work’s character. “On careful examination, the Tuìsī jí lèifāng derives from Xú Língtāi’s Shānghán lèifāng and adapts it through editorial recompilation, with Jīnguì formulas and post-Hàn formulas added in as supplements, arranged into 24 categories. The Yīfāng gējué also derives from the Lántái guǐfàn tōngzhì fāng and so its annotations mostly follow Xú’s book, with wide reading from many other formularies. Occasionally there are new annotations of the Master’s own, and a few self-composed recipes appearing alongside. The selections are made with care; the annotations are extremely clear. I particularly admire how, though Zhòngjǐng’s formulas are taken as foundation, the Master also gathers the strengths of post-Zhòngjǐng physicians and refuses to confine himself to any single school’s teaching — as is also visible in his clinical case-records.”

Abstract

The work is the culmination of Wáng Xùgāo’s rhymed-formulary project and one of the most ambitious 19th-century pedagogical formularies. Its 24 categories of lèifāng (category-and-variation formulas) extend Xú Língtāi’s Shānghán category method to the broader HànSòngYuánMíng formulary corpus, with each category headed by a zǔfāng (parent formula) and its named jiājiǎn variants arrayed below in the Zhāng Lù [[張璐] / Yītōng zǔfāng style KR3ed060.

Wáng’s clinical-bibliographic synthesis embraces Zhòngjǐng-rooted jīngfāng doctrine, post-Zhòngjǐng masters (Sūn Sīmiǎo, Wáng Hǎogǔ, Lǐ Dōngyuán, Zhū Dānxī, Xuē Jǐ, Wú Yòukě, Yè Tiānshì, Wáng Mèngyǐn) on equal footing, and classical formulary scholarship (Xú Língtāi above all). This catholic methodological eclecticism is the principal Wáng Xùgāo signature and is what the publishing editor most admires.

The dating: composition presumably 1855–1862 (the last seven years of Wáng’s life, after his disciple-student episode of throwing manuscripts into the water — itself dated approximately by the 1855 yǐmǎo recovery); printing 1862 (posthumous publication of the Wáng Xùgāo yīshū liùzhǒng).

Translations and research

• Wáng Xùgāo yī-shū liù-zhǒng (modern punctuated editions: Shanghai: Shànghǎi kēxué jìshù chūbǎnshè, 1956; Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, 1987).
• Volker Scheid. Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006. Discusses Wáng Xùgāo’s catholic clinical synthesis.

Other points of interest

The preface’s anecdote of the disciple who fell into wild fits and threw his teacher’s manuscripts into the river is one of the most dramatic single episodes in late-Qīng medical-bibliographic history. The manuscripts’ partial recovery by Huá Sōngyán, dispatched to Lù Jìnshēng in Shānxī for repair, and the editorial restoration of the missing Zhīzǐ chǐ tāng page by reference to the Shānghán and Jīnguì originals, together constitute a small case-study in the collegial-editorial mode of late-Qīng medical-textual scholarship.

Links

• Wikidata: no dedicated entry.
• 退思集類方歌註 jicheng.tw
• Kanseki DB