Líng Lín Língfāng 凌臨靈方
The Numinous Formulas of Líng [Xiǎo-wǔ] in Bedside-Practice original clinical records by 凌曉五 (Líng Xiǎowǔ, late Qīng, died at age 72); organised for publication in the early Republican period by his student-of-students 沈仲圭 (Shěn Zhòngguī)
About the work
A short clinical case-record formulary preserving the bedside prescriptions of Líng Xiǎowǔ 凌曉五 (a late-Qīng Húzhōu 湖州 physician), as transmitted through his direct disciple 王香岩 (Wáng Xiāngyán of Wǔlín / Hángzhōu) and Wáng’s student 沈仲圭 (Shěn Zhòngguī), who organised the material for publication in the early Republican period. The work consists of approximately 50–80 clinical cases, each presenting a syndrome (Fēngwēn jiāshí warm-disease-with-food-stagnation, Shīwēn damp-warm, etc.), brief differential observations, and the prescribed formula with ingredients.
Prefaces
Preface by Fèi Zéyáo 費澤堯, dated Huángdì jìyuán 4637 nián, suìcì dì 78 jiǎzǐ, mèngxià zhī shànghuàn = first decade of the 4th lunar month of the 78th jiǎzǐ cycle in Huángdì year 4637 — which by the Sun Yat-sen Republican re-dating convention (Huángdì jìyuán = year-of-the-Yellow-Emperor, 1911 = jìyuán 4609) gives 1939.
“My friend Mr. Shěn Zhòngguī is a bóyǎ shì (broadly-elegant scholar) — refined in his study of QíHuáng (medicine), richly endowed with intelligence. He further studied with the famous Wǔlín (Hángzhōu) physician Wáng Xiāngyán, fully obtaining his transmission, and his attainment has grown deeper.
“Mr. Wáng was the gāozú (foremost-disciple) of our Hú (= Húzhōu) late-famous-physician Líng Xiǎowǔ 凌曉五. Mr. Líng was originally a Confucian-then-physician. At that time the volume of his patients seeking diagnosis was first-among-all; his jìpínbìng (relief-of-poor-illness) was both broad and unflagging from beginning to end. Therefore the senior elders in the rural community to this day still praise him. Huórén shù shēn, jìshì xīn hòu — his life-saving art deep, his world-helping heart thick — these can serve as praise-poems for the gentleman.
“In his later years he gave himself the hào Zhégōng lǎorén 折肱老人 (‘the Old Man of the Broken Forearm’, alluding to the proverb that one becomes a physician through threefold-broken-forearm experience). At 72 he ascended to dàoshān (Way-mountain: died). — Alas! His writings rarely transmitted. Now Mr. Shěn, generously taking the biǎoyáng xiānzhé qǐdí hòulái (raising-up of the former-worthy and instructing of the later-coming) as his own responsibility, will gradually commit Mr. Líng’s bequeathed writings to the woodblock — and has just now mailed [me] the Línglín língfāng one fascicle, asking me for prefatory words. I, though bùwén (un-literary), in hearing of this matter feel fǔzhǎng chēng kuài (clapping-the-hand in joy)…”
Abstract
A short clinical case-record formulary by Líng Xiǎowǔ (a Húzhōu rúyī / Confucian-physician of the late Qīng, who died aged 72; lifedates probably ca. 1820–1900), preserved through a two-generation transmission chain (Líng → his student Wáng Xiāngyán → Wáng’s student Shěn Zhòngguī). The publication is dated to 1939 by the Huángdì jìyuán dating in the Fèi Zéyáo preface. The work is one of several Líng manuscripts that Shěn Zhòngguī brought to print as part of his early-Republican Húzhōu medical-heritage preservation project.
The work’s value lies in its preservation of the Húzhōu late-Qīng clinical style — a synthesis of the Wēnbìng (warm-disease) doctrine with the inherited Mènghé and Wǔjìn pedagogical streams. The cases are concise but doctrinally sharp; each represents a small instructional example of how the master worked from syndrome to formula.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located on this specific work. For the broader early-Republican medical-heritage preservation movement see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine (Eastland, 2007).
Links
- See 凌曉五 (original author), 沈仲圭 (publisher), 王香岩 (intermediate transmitter), and 費澤堯 (preface-writer).
- 凌臨靈方 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB