Shíbìng lùn 時病論
Treatise on Seasonal Disorders by 雷豐 (Léi Fēng, zì Sōngcún 松存, hào Shàoyì 少逸, 1833–1888)
About the work
Léi Fēng’s Shíbìng lùn in 8 juǎn, completed Guāngxù 8 (1882) and printed the following year. A major late-Qīng wēnbìng monograph organising the externally-contracted seasonal disorders (shíbìng 時病) into a clear four-season framework, with the canonical wēnbìng-school distinction between fúqì 伏氣 (latent-qi) and xīngǎn 新感 (newly-contracted) varieties carefully maintained throughout. The text is one of the most clinically useful and pedagogically influential of the late-Qīng wēnbìng treatises and has remained a standard reference in modern TCM training.
Abstract
The preface is signed “Guāngxù bā nián rénwǔ zhòngqiū qián yī rì, Sānqú Léi Fēng Shàoyì shì zhì yú Yǎnghè Shānfáng” 光緒八年壬午仲秋前一日，三衢雷豐少逸氏識於養鶴山房, fixing both date (1882) and place (Yǎnghè Shānfáng 養鶴山房, Léi’s studio in Qúzhōu 衢州). Léi was a native of Sānqú 三衢 (Qúzhōu) and a third-generation physician — his father 雷逸仙 Léi Yìxiān had studied under 程芝田 Chéng Zhītián.
The work is organised by season: spring disorders (chūnwēn 春溫, fēngwēn 風溫, wēnyì 溫疫, wēndú 溫毒); summer disorders (shǔwēn 暑溫, shīwēn 濕溫, xiàshǔ 夏暑); autumn disorders (qiūzào 秋燥, fúshǔ 伏暑); winter disorders (dōngwēn 冬溫, dōnghán 冬寒, tányǐn 痰飲). For each disorder Léi presents the canonical Nèijīng / Shānghán lùn doctrinal background, the standard prescriptions, and a body of his own clinical cases. The clinical idiom is recognisably continuous with the southern (Sūzhōu–Hángzhōu) Yè–Wú–Wáng line of wēnbìng practice, but with Léi’s own emphasis on rigorous seasonal classification.
The work was reprinted many times in the late Qīng and Republican periods and remains in print as a standard wēnbìng textbook.
Translations and research
- Hanson, Marta. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. London: Routledge, 2011 — treats Léi Fēng among the major Zhèjiāng wēn-bìng school physicians.
- Liú Jǐng-yuán 劉景源, Wēn-bìng tiáo-biàn jiǎng-jiě 溫病條辨講解 (Beijing: Rénmín Wèishēng, 2008) — surveys Léi within the late-Qīng wēn-bìng canon.
- Shí-bìng lùn jīn shì 時病論今釋 (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue, 1958) — annotated modern critical edition.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The text is the principal exhibit for the late-Qīng “Zhèjiāng” wing of the wēnbìng tradition, distinguished from the Sūzhōu mainstream by an explicit emphasis on the fúqì / xīngǎn distinction and on the seasonal pathogenetic schema.