Yī zōng jīn jiàn · Shānghán xīn fǎ yào jué 醫宗金鑑·傷寒心法要訣
Imperial Compendium of Medicine — Essential Verses on the Heart-Method of Cold Damage by 吳謙 (Wú Qiān, zì Liùjí 六吉, fl. Qiánlóng, 清) and 劉裕鐸 (Liú Yùduó), co-chief-editors under imperial commission, with the imperial physicians’ staff of the Tàiyīyuàn 太醫院
About the work
A five-juan versified pedagogical digest of Shānghán lùn doctrine, forming the Shānghán xīn fǎ yào jué 傷寒心法要訣 section of the Yī zōng jīn jiàn 醫宗金鑑 (KR3e0090) — the comprehensive Qiánlóng-period imperial medical compendium, completed Qiánlóng 7 = 1742 and printed Qiánlóng 14 = 1749. The work was compiled at the Tàiyīyuàn under the editorial chairmanship of 吳謙 Wú Qiān (the institute’s yuànpàn 院判) and 劉裕鐸 Liú Yùduó.
Abstract
Composition date 1742 (Qiánlóng 7). The Shānghán xīn fǎ yào jué takes the form of gē jué 歌訣 — heptasyllabic mnemonic verses — followed by prose annotations, organized by the canonical six-conformation schema. The opening verse — “六經為病盡傷寒，氣同病異豈期然，推其形臟原非一，因從類化故多端” (The six conformations as disease are entirely cold-damage; same qì but differing diseases — how could this be predetermined? Inquiring into the constitution and viscera reveals each is not one; following along varieties of transformation, hence the many ramifications) — encapsulates the editorial program: the Shānghán canon as a unified clinical framework whose ramifications follow from the constitution-and-viscera variations of the patient.
The work was the imperial-curriculum Shānghán textbook from 1749 onward and the standard reference of Qīng imperial-medical practice. As a gē jué digest of canonical Shānghán doctrine, it occupies a similar pedagogical niche to 許叔微’s Shānghán bǎi zhèng gē (KR3ef061) of seven centuries earlier — but with the prestige and authority of imperial commission.
The work is one of the principal Qīng Shānghán pedagogical texts and remains in continuous use in modern Chinese-medicine education.
Translations and research
- Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas — on the Yī zōng jīn jiàn and its imperial-medical context.
- No substantial English-language translation of this specific section located, but extensive Chinese-language secondary literature.
Other points of interest
The Yī zōng jīn jiàn is the single most-cited Qīng medical reference work and the principal monument of mid-Qiánlóng imperial-medical scholarship. Its Shānghán xīn fǎ yào jué section is one of the two principal Shānghán materials in the compendium (the other being the Dìng zhèng Zhòngjǐng quán shū · Shānghán lùn zhù 訂正仲景全書·傷寒論註, which is the textual-philological companion).
Links
- See KR3e0090 (parent Yī zōng jīn jiàn).
- See KR3ef086 (the parallel Jīnguì section in the Yī zōng jīn jiàn).
- See KR3ef001 (parent Shānghán lùn).
- 醫宗金鑑·傷寒心法要訣 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB