Fāngjì Cídiǎn 方劑辭典
A Dictionary of Medical Formulas by 水走嘉言 (Mizuhashiri Yoshikoto 水走嘉言, of Kawachi-Hiraoka 河陽平岡, fl. early 19th c., late Edo Japan)
About the work
A late-Edo formulary in dictionary-by-stroke-count form. Mizuhashiri Yoshikoto has gathered “formulas from many dozens to many hundreds of houses, from [Zhāng Zhòngjǐng of] Chángshā at the top down to the Míng and Qīng masters at the bottom,” and arranges them by bǐhuà 筆畫 (stroke-count of the formula’s name) under headings yī huà (one-stroke), èr huà (two-stroke), etc. Each entry gives a brief indication, the canonical source in parentheses (e.g. Wèishēng fāng, Jīnguì, Júfāng, Wàitái mìyào, Qiānjīn fāng, Shèngjì fāng, etc.), ingredients with doses, decoction directions, and posological notes. The work is laid out in the manner of a reference manual rather than a discursive treatise; the preface states the explicit goal is “便於檢閱” (ease of consultation).
Prefaces
Original Preface (yuánxù), 文化戊辰孟夏 (= early summer 1808), signed Héyáng Pínggāng Shuǐzǒu Jiāyán 河陽平岡水走嘉言 (Mizuhashiri Yoshikoto of Hirao-ka in Kawachi 河陽 = Kawachi 河内 province, present-day eastern Ōsaka).
Translation summary of the preface:
“Hard indeed and of long duration is the medical Way. Of all the famous physicians ancient and modern, none has failed to take Master Zhāng [Zhòngjǐng] as their fountainhead. In my leisure-time from official duties I have for many years sunk myself in the methodologies; I selected the standard formulas of the successive dynasties and tested them in many places. — Yet I felt that I could not put them all to proof. In recent times, in the rénxū and dīngmǎo years (= 1802 and 1807), the prefectures of Xiéběi were twice afflicted by flood. The patients who died untimely could not be counted. As I went about the villages dispensing medicines, those who begged me for life-saving treatment were more than a thousand-some-hundreds. There I tested many formulas, and each yielded its effect. Therefore I gathered the proven ones and named the book Fāngyuàn 方苑 (‘Garden of Formulas’), and presented it to my colleagues.”
“This present book takes the formulas from Chángshā at the head down to the many dozens to many hundreds of houses of the Míng and Qīng — those that can serve as the standards — and arranges them in a small volume by the forty-eight phonetic-letter [stroke-counts? misreading; the body actually uses stroke-counts] for convenience of consultation.”
Abstract
A precisely-dated late-Edo (Bunka 5 = 1808) formulary by a Kawachi-Hirao-ka physician whose clinical experience was sharpened by his medical relief activity in the Xiéběi (= Yamato-Kawachi) flood disasters of 1802 and 1807. The dictionary-by-stroke-count arrangement is unusual for the period — the standard Edo formularies (the Tamba house’s collations, Yoshimasu Tōdō’s Rui-jū hō, etc.) order by therapeutic category, not by name — and signals Mizuhashiri’s targeting of a practical user-base of village physicians who would need to look up unknown formula-names quickly from prescription-slips.
The work is therefore a reference-tool counterpart to the better-known kohōha “category formularies” of the same generation. The textual base is the same Sino-Japanese canon: Jīnguì, Júfāng, Wàitái, Qiānjīn, Shèngjì, Wèishēng fāng, and the major MíngQīng compendia. Mizuhashiri himself does not appear in the principal Edo medical biographical dictionaries (e.g. Nihon ishi gaku), and beyond the preface no further data are recoverable. The author refers to a previous work of his own, Fāngyuàn 方苑, the 1802×1807 flood-relief formulary, which is not separately transmitted.
Note that the preface dates “文化戊辰” = Bunka 5 = 1808, but the catalog’s dynasty: 清 refers to the contemporaneous Qīng reign-period for cross-reference within the Kanripo corpus rather than to any political affiliation of the author.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Brief notice in Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠’s online catalogue of late-Edo medical works (https://www.hum.ibaraki.ac.jp/mayanagi/).
Links
- See 水走嘉言 for biography.
- Mayanagi Makoto’s catalogue of late-Edo medical works
- 方劑辭典 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB