Qiánzhāi Jiǎnxiào Fāng 潛齋簡效方（附醫話）
The Qián Studio’s Simple-Effective Formulas (with Appended Medical-Talk) by 王士雄 (Wáng Shìxióng = Wáng Mèngyīng 王孟英, 1808–1868; late Qīng Wēnbìng master)
About the work
A compact clinical formulary by Wáng Mèngyīng 王孟英, presenting single-formula (dānfāng) and few-ingredient simple-effective prescriptions for difficult clinical cases, with an appended series of medical-talk (yīhuà 醫話) anecdotes that document Wáng’s bedside observations and editorial commentary on the dānfāng tradition.
The work’s title Qiánzhāi 潛齋 (“Hidden Studio”) refers to Wáng’s studio-name (a common late-Qīng device); the alternative Suíxījū (Following-the-Breath Cottage) appears in his other works (KR3ed124 Jīmíng lù, Suíxījū yīàn).
Prefaces
Preface by the publisher of the work (an unnamed contemporary of Wáng’s):
“The famous officials and great Confucian-scholars of antiquity often delighted in recording single-formulas, by which to relate-to the people’s affliction and suffering. But the physicians of the world have always considered them vulgar and unworthy of speech — how narrow their understanding!
“Mr. Wáng Mèngyīng says: ‘A single drug treating a disease is the qífāng (extraordinary-formula) of the ancients. — Indeed, one disease originally has one drug as its principal treatment. If one knows that truly, what need is there for many varieties? Only: there are diseases that can be measured by chánglǐ (common principles), which husband-and-wife know-and-share; and there are diseases that cannot be measured by common principles — even the sage cannot fully [grasp them]. Therefore, where the disease-mechanism is yǐnhuàn (hidden-and-illusory), it requires the good-hand to bring it to merit; where the disease-condition is strange-and-bizarre, it requires the single-formula to cure it.
“In the past, [Ōu]-gōng [Ōuyáng Xiū] suffered acute dysentery and was near death; he begged drugs from a cow-doctor [and recovered]. Lǐ Fángyù treated a cough and was awarded office — having obtained the formula from a xiàzǒu (low servant). Truly the medical principles are difficult to exhaust, and drugs cannot be ranked superior-or-inferior by their guìjiàn (noble-or-base [pedigree]).
“Even now in the Dàoguāng era — my Hángzhōu Huángfǔ Xīnān (= Huángfǔ Xīnān, zì Xīnān, a Hángzhōu literatus) had a fox-spirit in his house who could cure diseases; the family addressed it as xiān (immortal). The Lè Huáigǔ family had a girl-infant in swaddling-clothes who suddenly cried unceasingly. When patted, she cried even louder. Undressing her clothing and looking at her back, they saw an embroidery-needle slightly exposed at one end — the needle had fully entered. Many physicians treated her with various medicinal poultices, but the flesh ulcerated and the needle did not come out. The fox-spirit ordered them to use a magnet to draw at the wound — the principle was sound but it had no effect either. — After a hundred days, an alcohol-seller heard of the case and said: ‘Easy enough! — just take yínxìng (silver-apricot) seeds peeled and pithed, pound them, soak in vegetable-oil for a long time, drop the oil into the wound — and the needle will come out.’ After a while, the needle indeed pierced out through the wound — but the needle had bent…”
The preface continues with several further such anecdotes (the fox-spirit subsequently disappearing in shame at being outdone by the lay knowledge of the wine-seller, etc.) — all framed as documentary evidence that simple-formulas and folk-knowledge sometimes outperform learned medicine.
Abstract
A late-clinical-career work of Wáng Mèngyīng, written in his Qián-studio retirement period (mid-1850s to 1868). The work belongs to the same series as KR3ed139 Sìkē jiǎnxiào fāng (Wáng’s four-branches simple-effective formulary) and KR3ed140 Jiàodìng yuàntǐ yīhuà liángfāng (Wáng’s collation of Shǐ Jìnchén’s Yuàntǐ yīhuà liángfāng) — together constituting Wáng’s late editorial project on the simple-formula tradition.
The preface develops a substantive methodological argument: Wáng holds that the dānfāng (single-formula) tradition deserves serious clinical respect, especially for the qízhèng (strange-syndrome) cases that the standard formulary cannot handle. This is a deliberate position-taking against the early-Qīng tradition (Yú Chāng, Xú Língtāi) that had derided dānfāng as the residue of folk-charlatanism. Wáng’s view is that the proper clinician should be methodologically catholic — applying canonical multi-ingredient fùfāng for the typical cases and recognised dānfāng (including ones with folk-cultural origin like the wine-seller’s yínxìng extraction) for the unusual ones.
The appendix of yīhuà (medical-talk anecdotes) — including the famously-circulated anecdote of the embroidery-needle in the infant girl’s back — is part of Wáng’s clinical-cultural documentary project: each anecdote functions both as clinical-instructional example and as moral-cultural commentary on the proper relation of learned and folk medicine.
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.
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011).
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine (Eastland, 2007).
Links
- See 王士雄.
- Cognate works by Wáng: KR3ed124, KR3ed139, KR3ed140.
- 潛齋簡效方（附醫話） (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB