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成方便讀

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Text ID
KR3ed092
Date
1904–1904
Dynasty
清

Chéngfāng Biàn Dú 成方便讀

An Easy-Reading Manual of Established Formulas by 張秉成 (Zhāng Bǐngchéng, zì Zhàojiā 兆嘉, late Qīng, of Wǔjìn 武進)

About the work

A late-Qīng pedagogical formulary in four juǎn, covering 200-plus classical and quasi-classical chéngfāng 成方 (“established / off-the-shelf formulas”) organised by therapeutic-strategy category (補養, 發表, 攻裏, 涌吐, 和解, 表裏, 補火, 滋陰, etc.), each formula given as a four- or seven-character rhymed mnemonic verse (gējué 歌訣) followed by ingredients-and-doses, indications, and an interlinear annotation explaining the doctrinal logic. The work is the second member of Zhāng Bǐngchéng’s “Biàn dú 便讀” pedagogical trilogy (KR3ec068 Běncǎo biàn dú — substances, 1887; Chéngfāng biàn dú — formulas, 1904; Bìngàn biàn dú — case studies), the principal late-Qīng systematic effort to make standard fāngjìxué doctrine accessible to apprentice physicians through parallel rhymed prose.

Prefaces

Self-Preface (zìxù), 光緒三十年歲甲辰仲春 = spring 1904, signed Wǔjìn Zhāng Bǐngchéng Zhàojiā shì zìxù yú Cúnchéng táng 武進張秉成兆嘉氏自序於存誠堂.

The preface, in clean classical prose, develops a two-part justification:

  1. The Mencian analogy. Citing Mencius 4A.1 (LíLóu) — without the compass and the carpenter’s square, neither Lí Lóu’s eye nor Gōngshūzǐ’s hand can produce the perfect circle or square; without the six pitch-pipes, even Shī Kuàng’s ear cannot tune the five tones — the compiler argues that medicine, even more than the manual crafts, demands inherited guījǔ (規矩, “rules-of-thumb”). He invokes the famous Fàn Zhòngyān 范文正 dictum (“If I cannot become a worthy minister, let me become a worthy physician” 不為良相，便為良醫) to elevate the dignity of the medical art.
  2. The pedagogical complaint. Existing běncǎo and fāngshū literature is either “carts and sweat-bulls of redundancy” (汗牛充棟) or, conversely, too narrow; works that are at once accurate, concise, and accessible “are truly difficult to find” (誠為難覯). Hence in yǐhài (1887) he had compiled the Běncǎo biàn dú in two volumes for his eldest son to memorise; and now, “since substances may issue from a physician’s hands but formulas mostly take their pattern from the ancients, no one who has made his name in medicine has failed to take ancient formulas as the framework,” he has compiled this companion formulary. The 200-plus formulas are those “commonly used in the world and routinely followed by colleagues in the profession,” reformulated as gējué with annotation appended.

Abstract

The work is precisely datable: 1904 by the zìxù, with Wǔjìn (Chángzhōu prefecture, Jiāngsū) as the place of compilation. Zhāng Bǐngchéng (zì Zhàojiā) was a younger contemporary of the Mènghé masters Mǎ Péizhī, Wù Jūtōng, and Fèi Bóxióng — and the Biàn dú trilogy is one of the principal WǔCháng 武常 (WǔjìnChángzhōu) pedagogical projects of the very late Qīng. The juǎn-division follows the classical fāngzǔ (formula-category) order of Wāng Áng 汪昂 Yīfāng jí jiě 醫方集解 (1682) — juǎn 1 Bǔyǎng zhī jì (補養 supplementing); juǎn 2 Fābiǎo / Gōnglǐ / Yǒngtù / Héjiě / Biǎolǐ (purging and harmonising); juǎn 3 Lǐqì / Lǐxuě / Lǐfēng / Lǐshī (regulating qì, blood, fēng, dampness); juǎn 4 Zhìzào / Zhìzhì / Zhìshǔ / Zhìtán / Xiāodǎo / Yǒngjiē etc.

The structural innovation over Wāng Áng is that each formula’s first item is the mnemonic verse, not the ingredient-list — the verse becomes the primary unit of pedagogy. This format derives from the Tāngtóu gējué 湯頭歌訣 of Wāng Áng himself (KR3ed083) and the Yīfāng jí jiě annotation tradition, but Zhāng compresses the doctrinal annotation tighter and adds 19th-century Wēnbìng-school favourites (Yínqiáo sǎn, Sāngjú yǐn, etc.) to the classical-Sòng base.

The work survives in two principal printings: the 1904 woodblock Cúnchéng táng edition (Zhāng’s own studio) and a number of lithographed Shànghǎi reprints of the early Republican period (1910s–1920s). Modern punctuated editions: Chéngfāng biàn dú (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi kēxué jìshù chūbǎnshè, 1958, later reprints).

Translations and research

  • Chéngfāng biàn dú, punctuated and collated edition, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi kēxué jìshù chūbǎnshè, 1958.
  • Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007) — brief treatment of Zhāng Bǐngchéng’s position in the Mèng-hé / Wǔjìn pedagogical milieu.

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