Dānfāng zhī Yánjiū 丹方之研究
A Study of Single-Drug Formulas by 岡西為人 (Okanishi Tameto, Gāngxī Wéirén, 1898–1973; Japanese medical historian, Manchurian Medical College Chinese Medicine Research Laboratory)
About the work
A modern Japanese bibliographic-statistical study of the single-drug formula (dānfāng 丹方) tradition in Chinese medicine, undertaken at the Manchurian Medical College’s Chinese Medicine Research Laboratory (滿洲醫科大學中國醫學研究室) by Okanishi Tameto 岡西為人 (1898–1973), the major mid-20th-century Japanese historian of Chinese medical bibliography. The study takes the Manchurian Medical College’s research-library collection of approximately 1,600 Chinese medical works and:
- Selects those works that record dānfāng — 322 books in total.
- Extracts every dānfāng by name, recording its source — 2,405 formulas in total.
- Arranges the formulas in stroke-count alphabetical order (modeled on the dictionary).
- Tags each formula entry with: (a) prescription number, (b) prescription name, (c) source-of-extraction with cross-reference number.
The result is a comprehensive bibliographic catalogue and statistical survey of the dānfāng literature, made directly usable by clinicians and historians who need to identify the provenance of a specific named single-drug formula.
Prefaces
Editorial Notes (lìyán) preserved in the KR text:
“One: Of the approximately 1,600 Chinese-medical books held by the Manchurian Medical College’s Chinese Medicine Research Laboratory, this book has selected the 322 books that record dānfāng. Each dānfāng name is recorded one-by-one. Some formulas are recorded in several books; some formulas come in groups from one book. Arranged by stroke-count of the formula-name in dictionary-style, with source-of-extraction noted. The total is 2,405 formulas.
“One: This Yīlǎn (one-glance table) is, for convenience, organised principally by formula-name as the basis-of-the-table.
“One: The sequence of prescription-arrangement: by dictionary-style, ordered by the stroke-count of the first character — fewer strokes placed earlier, more strokes later. When the first character is identical, ordered by the stroke-count of the second character.
“One: The format of this book’s yīlǎn table is divided into three columns. The first column is the prescription-number; the second column, the prescription-name; the third, the source-of-extraction, the subordinate number indicating the prescription-number within the same source-work.
“One: The format of the cited-book bibliography is divided into four columns. The first column, the medical-work number; the second column, the book-title; the third column, the classification number of the cited-work in the Zhōngguó yīxué shūmù (= the Manchurian Medical College’s library-catalogue numbering); the fourth column, the count of dānfāng extracted from that work. (Cúnrénàn: ‘the third column is deleted because of irrelevance’ — a marginal editorial note by Cúnrén, the Chinese editor or re-publisher of Okanishi’s work.)”
Abstract
A modern bibliographic-statistical survey of the dānfāng literature by Okanishi Tameto 岡西為人 (1898–1973), one of the two most prominent twentieth-century Japanese historians of Chinese medicine (alongside Mori Risshi 森立之 of the earlier generation). Okanishi’s Sòngyǐqián yījí kǎo 宋以前醫籍考 (1958, Zhōngguó yījí kǎo 中國醫籍考 of 1936 expanded) became the principal modern reference for pre-Sòng Chinese medical bibliography and is still cited.
The Dānfāng zhī yánjiū belongs to Okanishi’s Manchurian period (he was at the Manchurian Medical College in Shěnyáng 瀋陽 from the 1930s through 1945, when he returned to Japan after the Soviet occupation). The work is one of his earliest bibliographic-systematic projects and prefigures the methodology of his later Yījí kǎo (medical-bibliography) work.
The marginal Cúnrénàn (the Cúnrén editorial note) suggests that the KR text is a Chinese re-edition of Okanishi’s original Japanese publication, with editorial intervention by a Chinese editor named Cúnrén who simplified the column-structure for Chinese readers. The original Japanese publication is plausibly in the Mansyū igaku zasshi 滿洲醫學雜誌 or a similar institutional outlet of the Manchurian Medical College.
Translations and research
- Okanishi Tameto 岡西為人, Sòngyǐqián yījí kǎo 宋以前醫籍考, Taipei: Nántiān shūjú 南天書局, 1981 (original 1958) — the major scholarly work of Okanishi.
- Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, articles on Japanese historians of Chinese medicine in Nihon ishigaku zasshi.
Other points of interest
This is a rare specimen in the Kanripo corpus of a modern bibliographic-statistical study of Chinese medicine rather than a primary clinical text. Its inclusion in the KR3ed (Qīng-era fāngshū) division reflects the corpus’s preservation of Republican-era medical-historical scholarship alongside the primary clinical-pharmacological literature.
Links
- See 岡西為人 for biography.
- 丹方之研究 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB