Jīmíng Lù 雞鳴錄
Records [Made at] the Cock-Crow by 王士雄 (Wáng Shìxióng, zì Mèngyīng 孟英, 1808–1868; Hǎiníng 海寧 → Hángzhōu, late Qīng Wēnbìng-school master)
About the work
A clinical-prescription manual by Wáng Mèngyīng 王孟英 (the zì by which he is universally known), the principal late-Qīng Wēnbìng (warm-disease) master and the most-cited mid-19th-century clinician. The work’s title — Cock-Crow Records — refers to the early-morning hour at which Wáng evidently composed and clinically reviewed his case-notes. The compilation is divided by clinical category, beginning with the gynaecological diseases (Nǚkē: dàixià leucorrhoea, tiáojīng menstrual regulation, bēnglòu haemorrhage, etc.) and continuing through internal medicine, paediatrics, and external-clinical material.
The opening Nǚkē section gives a clinically-discriminating presentation of dàixià with explicit doctrinal anchoring: “Dàixià, in women, exists from birth — a constant moisture, the heaven-given regular state. When it becomes too great, it is disease. However, the ancients used dàixià as the general name for women’s hidden complaints; today people know only the báidài (white discharge), chìdài (red discharge) and similar names. The aetiology is not of one source.” Wáng then differentiates by underlying syndrome — yīnxū (deficiency-of-yīn) → the Liùwèi dìhuáng wán prescribed at dawn with light-salt-water vehicle; shīshèng (dampness-excess) → the Sōngshí zhūdù wán; huǒshèng (fire-excess) → the huángbǎi + wūzéigǔ recipe with nǚzhēnzǐ decoction-vehicle, and so on.
Prefaces
The KR source KR3ed124_000.txt opens directly with the Nǚkē dìyī section, with the editorial note (1000-character-prosody): “the Qiānjīn bǎoyào lists the women’s section first — perhaps the Yìjīng begins with QiánKūn, the Shījīng begins with Guānjū, this follows the same principle.” No standalone preface is preserved in the digital text.
Abstract
A late mid-career or late-career work of Wáng Mèngyīng, plausibly dated to the 1850s–1860s (Wáng died in 1868 in the post-Tài-píng exile period). The work is one of several short clinical compilations from Wáng’s pen — alongside the major Wēnrè jīngwěi 溫熱經緯, the Suíxījū yīàn 隨息居醫案, the Bǔzhèngzhèng tiáo lùn 補正證調論, and others — that together establish the late-Qīng Wēnbìng-school orthodoxy.
The work’s principal characteristic is Wáng’s signature methodological rigour: each clinical category is presented with yīyī biànzhèng (one-by-one syndrome-discrimination), not generic syndrome-based recipes; the choice of formula depends on careful xū / shí / hán / rè analysis of the specific patient; the doses and vehicles are specified to the fēn and lí. This contrasts strongly with the popular-formulary mode of much late-Qīng pharmacology (e.g. KR3ed108 Yànfāng xīn biān) and aligns with Wáng’s jīngyán (essential-and-precise) approach.
The opening editorial note’s invocation of the Qiānjīn yàofāng (placing the women’s section first) and the corresponding Yìjīng / Shījīng analogy (QiánKūn / Guānjū first) is itself a doctrinal-rhetorical signal: Wáng is positioning his work in the great classical-formulary tradition that begins with Sūn Sīmiǎo and that prioritises women’s medicine.
The work was preserved in several Qīng printings and is included in the modern Wáng Mèngyīng yīxué quánshū 王孟英醫學全書 collections (Beijing, 1999).
Translations and research
- Wáng Mèngyīng yīxué quánshū 王孟英醫學全書, ed. Shèng Zēngxiù 盛增秀 et al., Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào chūbǎnshè, 1999 (the standard collected edition of Wáng Shìxióng).
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011) — extensive treatment of Wáng Mèngyīng.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine (Eastland, 2007).
- Pierce Salguero (ed.), Hidden Springs: A Buddhist Women’s Sangha in America — incidental.
Links
- See 王士雄 for full biography.
- Cognate works by Wáng in the corpus: KR3ed138 Qiánzhāi jiǎnxiào fāng, KR3ed139 Sìkē jiǎnxiào fāng, KR3ed140 Jiàodìng yuàntǐ yīhuà liángfāng.
- 雞鳴錄 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB