Shānghán héng lùn 傷寒恆論
Constant Treatise on Cold Damage by 鄭壽全 (Zhèng Shòuquán, zì Qīn’ān 欽安, 1804–1901, 清)
About the work
A ten-juan late-Qīng Shānghán commentary by the Sìchuān physician 鄭壽全 Zhèng Shòuquán (universally known as Zhèng Qīn’ān 鄭欽安), founder of the Sìchuān “Fire-spirit School” 火神派. The Héng lùn — third of Zhèng’s three principal works, after Yī lǐ zhēn chuán 醫理真傳 (1869) and Yī fǎ yuán tōng 醫法圓通 (1874) — applies Zhèng’s distinctive yáng / mìngmén huǒ 命門火 (gate-of-life fire) clinical doctrine to a systematic re-reading of the Shānghán canon.
Abstract
Composition window 1874–1894 is bracketed by the publication of Zhèng’s preceding Yī fǎ yuán tōng (1874) and the conventional citation of Shānghán héng lùn as Zhèng’s mature, third major work. The text supplements the canonical six-conformation 六經 framework of the Shānghán with Zhèng’s distinctive doctrinal additions, prominently including an “外附太陽少陰總論” (Appended General Treatise on Tàiyáng and Shàoyīn) that re-grounds the Shānghán’s opening chapters in the kǎn 坎 / lí 離 cosmology of the Yì jīng. In Zhèng’s reading, tàiyáng is “kǎnzhōng zhēnyáng” 坎中真陽 (the true yáng within the kǎn trigram) and shàoyīn is “kǎnshuǐ” 坎水 (the kǎn water) — and the entire Shānghán clinical logic reduces to the dynamics of yángqì movement between these two layers.
The principal modern reprintings carry an editorial “闡釋” (clarification) section after each canonical chapter, identifying the connection between the Héng lùn and Zhèng’s earlier Yī lǐ zhēn chuán and the Sìchuān “Fire-spirit” clinical method. The work has been continuously transmitted in the Sìchuān Lú-school lineage (盧鑄之 → 盧永定 → 吳佩衡 → present) and is one of the principal canonical texts of modern Chinese “Fire-spirit” practice.
Translations and research
- Heiner Fruehauf, “Fire-Spirit School of Chinese Medicine” — English-language survey of Zhèng Qīn’ān’s tradition (Classical Chinese Medicine website, 2010).
- Tang Buqi (湯不器) and modern Sìchuān-school clinicians have produced extensive secondary commentary on Zhèng’s three works.
- No substantial English-language translation of the Héng lùn located.
Other points of interest
This is one of the most distinctive late-Qīng Shānghán commentaries — and the most overtly cosmological-correlative Shānghán reading of the entire Qīng tradition. Its survival as a living clinical tradition in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Sìchuān makes it an unusual example of a Shānghán commentary continuously transmitted in practice (rather than merely as a philological monument).
Links
- See KR3ef001 (parent Shānghán lùn).
- 傷寒恆論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB