Yījì fúyīn lùn 醫寄伏陰論
Medical Notes: Treatise on Latent-Yīn Disease by 田宗漢 (Tián Zōnghàn, zì Yúnchá 雲槎)
About the work
A specialised mid-19th-century monograph on the fúyīn 伏陰 (latent-yīn) disorder, a disease entity that Tián Zōnghàn proposes to distinguish clinically from cholera (霍亂 huòluàn) in the context of the Qīng cholera pandemics. The text is composed in the typical Qīng wēnbìng-school idiom — close reading of Nèijīng and Shānghán loci on latent-yīn pathology, combined with detailed prescription comparisons.
Abstract
The work is one of a cluster of mid-Qīng monographs responding to the cholera pandemics that reached China in the 1820s (see Hinrichs–Barnes 2013: 203–204; Hanson 2011). Cholera presented Qīng physicians with an unfamiliar clinical picture — uncontrolled watery diarrhoea, rapid collapse, fatality within hours — that did not map cleanly onto either Shānghán or wēnbìng nosological categories. The standard Qīng wēnbìng response was to assimilate cholera to huòluàn 霍亂 (“sudden turmoil”), as 王士雄 Wáng Mèngyīng would do in his Huòluàn lùn (KR3eg040, 1851).
Tián’s response is different: he argues for a clinical distinction between cholera proper (which he assimilates loosely to huòluàn) and a parallel latent-yīn disorder (fúyīn 伏陰), which presents similarly but requires a different prescription. The doctrinal foundation is the fúqì 伏氣 / latent-qi theory of the Nèijīng, with yīn substituted for qì — winter cold injures the yīn, dormant within the body, emerges in summer as fúyīn with cholera-like presentation.
The dating bracket reflects the cholera-pandemic context: the work is most likely composed between Tián’s establishment as a mature physician (probably 1850s) and the late-Qīng (post-1880s). The original Shíxíng fúyīn lùn 時行伏陰論 was probably completed in 1854; a re-edited version Chóngdìng shíxíng fúyīn chúyán 重訂時行伏陰芻言 was published in 1922 as KR3eb042.
Translations and research
- Hanson, Marta. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge, 2011, ch. 6 — context on Qīng cholera responses and the fú-yīn current.
- Hinrichs, T. J. and Linda L. Barnes (eds.), Chinese Medicine and Healing. Harvard Belknap, 2013, pp. 203–204.
- MacPherson, Kerrie L., “Cholera in China, 1820–1930,” in Elvin and Liu (eds.), Sediments of Time. Cambridge UP, 1998, 487–519.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The fúyīn concept is one of the more distinctive late-Qīng diagnostic categories — neither absorbed into the modern TCM curriculum nor entirely forgotten. The work pairs with KR3eg040 (Wáng Mèngyīng’s Huòluàn lùn) as the two principal mid-19th-century Chinese-medical responses to cholera.
Links
- See also KR3eb042 for the 1922 re-edition.
- 醫寄伏陰論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB