Wēnbìng zhèngzōng 溫病正宗
The Orthodox Tradition of Warm Disease by 王德宣 (Wáng Déxuān, zì Sōngrú 松如)
About the work
A Republican-era critical re-assessment of the Qīng wēnbìng canon, composed by Wáng Déxuān as teaching material during his 1935 appointment as professor of warm-disease at the Húnán State Medical College 湖南國醫專科學校. The preface is signed “民國二十四年乙亥秋月，湘鄉恬憺山人王德宣松如甫序於湖南國醫專科學校” — dating the book to autumn of yǐhài (1935), printed Mínguó 25 (1936).
Abstract
Wáng’s authorial position is one of doctrinal terminological correction: in the spirit of Confucius’s zhèngmíng 正名, he holds that the doctrinal categories of warm-disease have become muddled through long misuse and require careful re-anchoring. The book is organised as a sequence of critical appraisals of the major Qīng wēnbìng monographs.
His critical positions are sharp and idiosyncratic. On 吳有性 Wú Yǒuxìng’s Wēnyì lùn (KR3eg004): praises Wú as the pioneer of epidemic medicine and the originator of the pestilential-qi / móyuán / nine-transmission doctrine; but criticises Wú for conflating warm-disease (wēnbìng) with warm-epidemic (wēnyì) — Wáng argues this conflation makes Wú “a criminal against Zhāng Jī” (仲景之罪人). On 吳塘 Wú Jūtōng’s Wēnbìng tiáobiàn (KR3eg010): scathing — accuses Wú of taking 葉桂 Yè Tiānshì’s doctrine and “exacerbating it beyond reason”, dividing the warm-disease pathology into a three-burner schema, treating warm-heat (wēnrè) and warm-epidemic (wēnyì) by the same prescriptions, and fabricating a “with Guìzhī tāng” citation against 張機 Zhāng Jī’s original text (with the harsh judgment “誣聖欺世” — slandering the sage, deceiving the world). On 王士雄 Wáng Mèngyīng’s Wēnrè jīngwěi (KR3eg008): high praise — Wáng (Mèngyīng) treats the XuānQíZhòngjǐng texts as the jīng (warp) and the YèXuē commentaries as the wěi (weft), “detailed and clear, the summa of the predecessors and a model for the disciples”.
Wáng’s prescription apparatus drew heavily on his 1932 Běijīng experience treating scarlet fever (lànhóu dānshā 爛喉丹痧), during which conventional treatment was failing and Wáng’s regimen was successful; he records that he used massive doses (lighter cases several liǎng daily, heavier cases eight or nine jīn) without exclusively relying on shígāo 石膏 — a polemic point against the standard Wēnbìng tiáobiàn prescription apparatus.
The textbook for warm-disease at the Húnán State Medical College was at that time 沈嘯谷 Shěn Xiàogǔ’s reworking of 時逸人 Shí Yìrén’s Wēnbìng quánshū 溫病全書; the Wēnbìng zhèngzōng was prepared as supplementary reading material to challenge the prevailing curriculum.
Translations and research
- Scheid, Volker, Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. Durham: Duke UP, 2002 — context of Republican-era TCM education reform.
- Hanson, Marta. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge, 2011.
- Lei, Sean Hsiang-lin, Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China’s Modernity. Chicago: UChP, 2014 — relevant for Republican-era doctrinal politics.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the sharpest internal critiques of the Qīng wēnbìng canon produced in the Republican era, and a major document for the doctrinal politics of Republican-period TCM.