本草單方

Běncǎo Dānfāng 本草單方

Single-Drug Formulas Extracted from the Materia Medica by 繆希雍 (Miù Xīyōng, zì Zhòngchún 仲醇, d. 1627; Chángshú 常熟, Jiāngsū)

About the work

A specialised compendium by Miù Xīyōng (the late-Míng Wēnbìng-school precursor; see 繆希雍 for biography), extracting from the entire Běncǎo (materia medica) tradition the dānfāng (single-drug or few-ingredient) formulas — prescriptions that consist of one substance or two-or-three substances only, in contrast to the fùfāng (compound formulas) of the standard formulary tradition. The work assembles approximately 1000-plus dānfāng arranged by syndrome-category across 19 juǎn. Miù personally collected this material across his clinical career and originally kept the compilation as his handwritten private notebook, not initially intended for publication.

Prefaces

Preface by a contemporary friend (a Chángshú associate of Miù’s; the preface name is partially lost in the KR text but the author signs himself a friend of Fùchū 父初, Liǎnzhī 斂之, and others of Miù’s circle):

“Mr. Miù Zhòngchún of Hǎiyú (= Chángshú), as a commoner travelling within the realm, his name praised within the great-and-officials, is heard everywhere. — When he hears of the urgent and distressed, xiūrán (immediately and decisively) he keeps his promise: he would cast off the seven-foot body and necessarily go a thousand-li distance. He views jīnbì (gold and jade) as chéntǔ (dust-and-earth) — like an ancient Tián Guāng or Lǔ Zhònglián, and even then he retires-and-entrusts-himself to medicine. He is well-skilled in treatment, brightly perceptive, his nature naturally formed, and supplemented by extensive shèlì (touching-and-experiencing). With humble heart he investigates, often obtaining mìshòu (secret-transmissions) and wùzhēnjué (apprehensions of true-formulas) — therefore he can see extremely and penetrate walls, his skill participates in swimming-blade (yóu rèn).

“I am ashamed to have been born too late, at a time when I was buried head-down in yánqiàn (lead-and-paper / printing-houses), to-the-year-end barely once peering out of city. So I have not been able to behold the gentleman’s brow-elegance, to hear his profound discoursings. — Yet the general fēnggài (manner-and-bearing) I have obtained from my friends Qí Xīyán and Dèng Jìnbó — both of them my brothers — not unlike shénjiāo mèngjiē (spirit-meeting and dream-greeting).

“Recently I have entered the city to live; morning and evening with elder brothers Fùchū and Liǎnzhī, in chéntán (dust-talk: ordinary conversation) — yì xī (further clarifying) his lifelong dǐyùn (deep-store of knowledge), and so I have understood that what he takes from his bosom is nothing but jìrén lìwù wéi wù (saving-people and benefiting-things as his task).

“Of all his writings and editings: like the Běncǎo jīngshū 本草經疏 cut into woodblocks at Qínshuǐ, the Bǐjì 筆記 and Guǎngjì 廣記 engraved at Chángchéng — both of these are sufficient to open-blind for the later students and benefit the multitude of living beings. And what is left: he still has a hand-collected Běncǎo hòu dānfāng (Substances’-Records-Aftermath of Single-Formulas), interspersed with his own self-stored extraordinary secrets — in ordinary times he does not lightly show to others.

“Mr. Yú Zhíhóu by chance saw it and treasured it; he wished to widen its circulation, and asked his friends to compile-and-categorise it and bring it to print…”

Abstract

A specialised compendium by Miù Xīyōng (late-Míng Wēnbìng-school precursor) — the third major work of his bibliography alongside the Xiānxǐngzhāi guǎng bǐjì (1622, KR3e0083) and the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng shū (30 juǎn, KR3e0084). The Běncǎo dānfāng was apparently circulated only as a private manuscript during Miù’s lifetime and was brought to print posthumously, after his death in 1627, by his friend Yú Zhíhóu 於執侯 (variant: 俞執侯) who recognised the manuscript’s value and arranged its publication.

The work’s specialised focus on dānfāng is methodologically significant. Miù took the position that for many clinical conditions, the Běncǎo gāngmù (1593) and earlier běncǎo literature preserved the proven single-drug interventions that were more reliable than the elaborate SòngYuán fùfāng compositions. By extracting the dānfāng and arranging them by syndrome, Miù created a practitioner’s cross-reference that allowed the clinician to identify the single-drug option for any given complaint. This methodology parallels but precedes the analogous arguments of 王士雄 (Wáng Mèngyīng) in the mid-19th century (KR3ed138–KR3ed139).

The work was an important transmission channel for Lǐ Shízhēn’s pharmacology to the specialised dānfāng tradition, and it influenced the later late-Míng / early-Qīng popular-pharmacy literature. It survives in several MíngQīng editions; the modern critical edition is in the Miù Xīyōng yīxué quánshū 繆希雍醫學全書 collections.

Translations and research

• Miù Xīyōng yīxué quánshū, ed. Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, Beijing.
• Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011) — on Miù’s place in late-Míng Wēnbìng doctrine.
• Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine (Eastland, 2007).

Links

• See 繆希雍 for full biography.
• Cognate works of Miù in the corpus: KR3e0083, KR3e0084.
• 本草單方 (jicheng.tw)
• Kanseki DB