Huīhòu Fāng 虺後方
Formulas Following [the Master’s Cure of] the Viper-Bite by 喻政 (Yù Zhèng, fl. late Wànlì era, Míng), Prefect
About the work
A late-Míng prefectural-administrative jíjiù (emergency-rescue) formulary published by Yù Zhèng 喻政 during his service as a Jùnbó (Prefect) of an unnamed prefecture. The title — Huīhòu fāng (literally “Formulas-After-the-Viper”) — alludes to a personal-experience narrative: the compiler’s father had once been seriously bitten by a viper (huī 虺), and an yìrén (extraordinary-person) had transmitted to him the family the rescue formula by which the father’s life was saved. The compiler’s collection grew from this experiential foundation into a broader emergency-formulary published as a public-charity act of his prefectural administration.
Prefaces
Preface for the Huīhòu fāng by an unnamed associate of Yù Zhèng:
“Jùnbó Mr. Yùgōng, on taking up his administrative carriage, inquired into the people’s afflictions and sufferings; in defining and settling the jíshì (gathering-and-resettling), within not a month his name-and-praise pángpò (resounded). Yet he still deeply concerned himself with the qìnghè yándòng zhī sǒu (the elders of the bamboo-gully and rocky-cave), the kǔnbì kuǎnqǐ zhī mín (the sincere-but-ungainly people) — how few can come directly to his hall [to seek redress]? For one in a thousand, the kēkùn zhī shēnyín (illness-and-distress moaning) — is no less than the [silent] cries of injustice uncomplained-of. The tossing-on-the-couch is no less than the [stationary] jail-cell never traversed.
“Therefore he brought out the Huīhòu fāng and entrusted it to the woodblock-cutters for wide circulation. Like the Shèlìzǐ relics-of-the-Buddha ‘removing all suffering-distress, truly without false’ — the poor can forthwith ready it in an instant; the foolish can carefully verify its true-character against syndrome-pattern — so its merit is especially great.
“[Compared to the alternatives:] at the central-roads making sacrificial zūn (vessel), those who pass each take according to their share, some-more-or-some-less, adjustably — it is not enough to compare to its [the work’s] universality. In mid-stream encountering a sudden need, a single jug worth a thousand cash — it is not enough to compare to its [the work’s] simplicity-and-essential-nature.
“The Shǐjūn (Lord Envoy)‘s administration is dànggòu tīhuì (cleansing-the-grime and scraping-out-the-filth); his gōngpíng lèyì (public-fair and joyful-easy) is roughly all of this character.
“Of old, Yīn Zhōngjūn (殷中軍 = 殷浩 Yīn Hào, the Jìn statesman) was a miàojiě (subtle-understanding) master of channel-meridian; in middle age he fully retired. Later when he cured a person of a hundred-year-old mother who immediately recovered, he immediately burned all the canonical formulae — the source and shallow-broadness was thus indeed. — But this is not worth mentioning.
“Even Dí Liánggōng [狄仁傑 Dí Rénjié], with one acupuncture-needle immediately raised the rich man’s hair-knotted son and jìzhǎi, declined a thousand-gold without giving it heed — this is truly a xiāngdù (mutual-gauging) of judgement-of-character. However, formulary books are not gathered to be lightly viewed.
“The sword-seller has no [private] knowing. — One does not know how Liánggōng could explain himself. Only 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Hù Kūnmíng dìzǐ requirement of taking the Lónggōng fāng (Dragon-Palace formula) into circulation in the world — the old gentleman’s heart was urgent indeed!
“Even less so: as for the gentleman’s [Yù Zhèng’s] circulated-formulas — coming from his attending on his honoured father’s illness, refined-thought and far-searching, suddenly encountering an extraordinary-person and afterwards obtaining it — the extraordinary-person is heaven’s vouchsafing. Just earlier [the yìrén] had raised up his honoured-father from the near-death, and again [Yù Zhèng] does not secret it in the bed-curtain. The Shī says: ‘The filial son is not exhausted; he eternally bequeaths to his kind’ — this is what is meant by the gentleman.”
Abstract
A precisely-undated but late-Míng (late Wànlì era) prefectural-administrative emergency-formulary by Yù Zhèng 喻政, who served as a Jùnbó (Prefect) in an unnamed prefecture and brought out the Huīhòu fāng as part of his administrative service. The work’s title and the preface narrative — the family’s near-fatal viper-bite cured by an yìrén’s transmission — give it an unusually concrete and dramatic origin story; it is one of the better-documented late-Imperial cases of personal-experiential medical authorship.
The preface’s yìrén (extraordinary-person) transmission-narrative is part of the standard late-Imperial revelatory-authorisation apparatus for popular pharmacology; it parallels the fújī (planchette) tradition of KR3ed110 and KR3ed120 but in a personal-encounter rather than spirit-writing mode.
The preface’s invocation of the filial-son trope from the Shījīng — that Yù Zhèng’s publishing of the family’s life-saving formula is the xiàozǐ bùkuì, yǒngxī ěrlèi (the filial son’s inexhaustible bequest) — frames the work as an act of filial-piety transmuted into public charity. This is a characteristically late-Míng Confucian-classical apparatus for popular medical publication.
The work is preserved in late-Míng and early-Qīng woodblock editions; a modern critical edition is in the Zhōngyī gǔjí míngzhù cóngshū.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
No substantial secondary literature located. The work is briefly catalogued in the Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù 中國中醫古籍總目 (2007). For late-Míng prefectural-administrative charity-publishing see Joanna Handlin Smith, The Art of Doing Good: Charity in Late Ming China (UC Press, 2009).
Links
- See 喻政.
- 虺後方 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB