Zhēnjiǔ jíchéng 針灸集成
Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion by 廖潤鴻 Liào Rùnhóng (撰)
About the work
A four-juan late-Qīng acupuncture compendium by the Húnán official 廖潤鴻 Liào Rùnhóng (hào Sōngpǔ 松圃; later director of the Imperial Astronomical Office in Beijing), completed and printed in the winter of Tóngzhì 同治十三年 (1874, jiǎxū). The work is one of the most influential late-Qīng acupuncture handbooks because Liào reformatted the Yīzōng jīnjiàn cìjiǔ xīnfǎ yàojué 醫宗金鑑 · 刺灸心法要訣 (KR3ee015, 1742, the imperial Qīng acupuncture curriculum) into a portable five-syllable verse mnemonic with full point-by-point indications, then supplemented it with copperplate reproductions of the bronze-figure acupoint atlas (the Tóngrén 銅人 diagrams, after 王惟一 Wáng Wéiyī, KR3ee056) at handbook scale “for the convenience of the desktop reader.” The text comprises: (1) the verse mnemonic Kǎozhèng zhōushēn xuéfǎ gē 考正周身穴法歌 (KR3ee032 in stand-alone form), (2) the indications and clinical applications, (3) the reproduced acupoint diagrams, and (4) chronoacupuncture and apotropaic-day tables.
Abstract
Liào Rùnhóng’s preface gives the genesis of the work clearly: serving in Beijing for five years, frustrated at age forty by the lack of progress in his official career and aware that he had a “weak memory” (餘性健忘), Liào set himself to memorizing the Yīzōng jīnjiàn acupuncture sections by recasting them as five-character verses (yùn yǐ wǔyán 韻以五言); he then “near at hand on his own body, constantly traced and palpated, until he forgot to sleep or eat” (近取諸身，時嘗尋按，至忘寢食). The result, the Zhēnjiǔ jíchéng, was prepared as a personal aid but published at the urging of his bookseller-friend 饒松圃 Ráo Sōngpǔ, who saw its didactic value for beginners. The work belongs to the same Tóngzhì–Guāngxù late-Qīng acupuncture-revival moment as Liào’s own Miǎnxuétáng zhēnjiǔ jíchéng 勉學堂針灸集成 (KR3ee037) and is widely cited in Republican-period acupuncture textbooks.
Translations and research
- Yáng Yìyà 楊毅亞, “Liào Rùnhóng Zhēnjiǔ jíchéng yánjiū” 廖潤鴻《針灸集成》研究, Zhōngyī wénxiàn zázhì 中醫文獻雜誌 (2000s).
- 黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng, Zhōngguó zhēnjiǔ shǐ tújiàn (2003) — Liào Rùnhóng’s role in the late-Qīng acupuncture textbook tradition.
Links
- Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù, zhēnjiǔ section.
- 針灸集成 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB