Jīngmài túkǎo 經脈圖考
Investigation with Diagrams of the Channels and Vessels by 陳惠疇 Chén Huìchóu (撰)
About the work
A four-juan late-Qīng illustrated reference on the channel-and-acupoint system by 陳惠疇 Chén Huìchóu (fl. Tóngzhì–Guāngxù), prefaced in Guāngxù 4 (1878). Chén’s self-preface develops a long cosmological framing: “Heaven and Earth is the great satchel of myriad things… it nurtures yáng immeasurably — this is Heaven being Heaven; it transforms-and-generates without boundary — this is Earth being Earth. Yet emptiness-and-fullness, separation-and-union, flow-and-transformation pervade everywhere… The roundness without limit is Heaven, charted by the nine wilderness-fields, displayed in the suspended images of sun and stars… The breadth without limit is Earth, traced by the two boundaries, formed in the shapes of rivers and mountains.” Chén transposes this cosmography onto the human body: “The human body is a microcosm of Heaven-and-Earth; he who would study the Qí-Huáng tradition — how can he fail to study this in detail?” The work then proceeds with channel-by-channel diagrams (the Jīngmài tú), acupoint-localization tables, and clinical-syndrome indications, organized after the standard fourteen-channel framework of 滑壽 Huá Shòu’s Shísì jīng fāhuī (KR3ee026).
Abstract
The Jīngmài túkǎo is one of the principal late-Qīng illustrated acupuncture-reference works, situated in the same Tóngzhì–Guāngxù acupuncture-revival moment as 廖潤鴻 Liào Rùnhóng’s Zhēnjiǔ jíchéng (KR3ee007, 1874) and 劉鍾衡 Liú Zhōnghéng’s Zhōng Xī huìcān tóngrén túshuō (KR3ee034, 1894). Chén Huìchóu’s distinctive contribution is the systematic re-drawing of the Tóngrén (Bronze Figure) acupoint diagrams in late-Qīng lithographic style, with detailed cùn-by-cùn localization measurements drawn from the Yīzōng jīnjiàn (KR3ee015) and the Zhēnjiǔ dàchéng (KR3ee027).
Translations and research
- 嚴世芸 Yán Shìyún, Zhōngyī rénwù cídiǎn, “Chén Huìchóu” entry.
- 黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng, Zhōngguó zhēnjiǔ shǐ tújiàn (2003), late-Qīng illustrated-acupuncture chapter.
Links
- Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù, zhēnjiǔ section.
- 經脈圖考 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB