Jiùjí Xuǎnfāng 救急選方
Selected Formulas for Emergency Rescue (Japanese Kyūkyū senpō) by 丹波元簡 (Tamba no Mototane 丹波元簡, Liánfū 廉夫, hào Guìshān 桂山, 1755–1810; bakufu oku-ishi, Edo Japan)
About the work
A late-Edo Japanese emergency formulary devoted entirely to acute, life-threatening conditions requiring rapid intervention: cùzhòng (sudden stroke / zújué), huòluàn (cholera), drowning, hanging, suffocation, choking, accidental poisoning, snakebite, scorpion-sting, dog-bite, burns, frostbite, sunstroke, sudden bleeding, obstetric haemorrhage, neonatal asphyxia, and similar zú (sudden / acute) presentations. The work assembles, by syndrome, the relevant formulas from the entire Sino-Japanese medical literature — from the Jīnguì, Wàitái, Qiānjīn, and Júfāng through the Sòng Shèngjì and the Míng masters, down to Edo Japanese contributions — with brief commentary by the compiler at the end of each rubric.
Prefaces
The source carries two front-matter pieces:
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Postface (bá) by the compiler’s younger brother, 湯川倓 Yukawa Tan, zì An-dào 安道, dated 癸亥正月初九日 = 9th day of the 1st lunar month, 1803.
- The postface develops the family-history theme. Mototane’s father had founded the Igaku-kan and intended to compile such an emergency formulary but died before completing it. Mototane’s Jiùjí xuǎnfāng is the fulfilment of the father’s project. The book is described as “援據該博” (drawing on extensive authoritative quotation) and is presented both as a clinical contribution and as a critique of “the medical houses’ chronic illness” (家負書簏之謗 — physicians who carry their books like book-baskets without actually reading them).
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Self-preface (or prefatory note by Mototane’s son explaining the work’s occasion): notes that Mototane regards “jìzhòng (rescuing the public)” as his personal duty, and that he was prompted to compile this book on observing that contemporary physicians “do not normally cultivate their art, but when a sudden emergency suddenly occurs, become flustered and lose their bearings, thereby causing untimely deaths.” The composition occasion: “while [the patient] was in childbirth, he wrote this book to prepare resources for emergency.”
The dating Kyōwa 享和 初 / 癸亥 = early Kyōwa, 1803.
Abstract
A precisely-dated 1803 emergency formulary by Tamba no Mototane, head of the Edo bakufu’s Igaku-kan and the most influential Japanese scholar of the Chinese medical canon in his generation. The work belongs to the same scholar-clinician’s pen as Sùwèn shí (1806; KR3ea010), Língshū shí (KR3ea026), and the Shānghán lùn jí yì. Of the Tamba family’s many works, this is the most directly oriented toward clinical-emergency practice and the most heavily dependent on encyclopedic compilation rather than philological collation.
The structure follows the classical zúbìng (sudden-disease) syndrome categories of the Wàitái mìyào and Sòng Shèngjì — with the principal innovation that the Sòng and Míng materials are followed by Edo Japanese supplements (formulas from Yoshimasu Tōdō, Kayano-house, Ogino-house, etc.) integrated into the same syndrome rubrics. The compiler’s annotation regularly compares the multiple formulas under each rubric for the practitioner’s selection.
The book continues the family’s intention to counter the typical Edo physician’s deficit in emergency-medicine training. Mototane’s younger brother Tan’s postface frames the work as the recovery of an unfinished family-project — Mototane’s father had begun a Jìjí fāng (Emergency Formulas) but did not live to complete it.
Translations and research
- Kyūkyū senpō in modern annotated edition: Tamba shi gakushū sōsho 丹波氏學習叢書 (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan).
- Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, online catalogue of late-Edo medical works.
- See 丹波元簡 for the standard bibliography of the Tamba house.
Links
- See 丹波元簡 (compiler) and 丹波元堅 (younger son).
- 救急選方 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB