Wēnyì lùn shīpíng 溫疫論私評
Private Commentary on the Treatise on Warm-Epidemic Disorders by 秋吉質 (Akiyoshi Tadashi, Edo-period Japan)
About the work
A mid-to-late Edo-period Japanese kanpō 漢方 commentary on 吳有性 Wú Yǒuxìng’s Wēnyì lùn (KR3eg004). The Japanese reading is On’eki ron shihyō. The title shīpíng 私評 (“private commentary”) is the typical Edo-period kanpō commentary genre — a personal annotation, doctrinally and clinically reasoned, rather than a critical edition.
Abstract
The Edo period saw extensive Japanese engagement with the Qīng wēnyì and wēnbìng traditions. Wú Yǒuxìng’s Wēnyì lùn circulated widely in Japan from the late 17th century onward, and was the subject of multiple commentaries by Edo kanpō physicians who applied Wú’s pestilential-qi doctrine to Japanese epidemic experience. The Tenmei 8 (1788) Kyoto epidemic, which prompted 源元凱 Minamoto Genkai’s Wēnbìng zhī yánjiū (KR3eg025), is the principal Edo-period epidemic against which the Japanese wēnyì commentary tradition was elaborated.
Akiyoshi’s shīpíng belongs to this commentary line. Dating is approximate; lifedates are not preserved in the readily accessible sources. The text was later transmitted to China and included in 湯本求真 Yumoto Kyūshin’s Huáng Hàn yīxué cóngshū 皇漢醫學叢書 (Shànghǎi Shìjiè Shūjú, 1936), which is the principal channel by which Edo-period kanpō warm-disease texts re-entered the Chinese medical literature in the Republican period.
The book is one of a small group of Japanese kanpō contributions to the Qīng wēnbìng corpus — see KR3eg025 (Minamoto Genkai), KR3eg045 (高島久貫 Takashima Hisanuki), KR3eg046 (池田瑞仙 Ikeda Zuisen).
Translations and research
- Hanson, Marta. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge, 2011 — context on Sino-Japanese wēn-bìng exchange.
- Huáng Hàn yī-xué cóng-shū 皇漢醫學叢書, ed. 湯本求真 Tāngběn Qiúzhēn. Shàng-hǎi: Shì-jiè Shū-jú, 1936 — the principal transmission channel.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The Edo-period Japanese kanpō commentary tradition on Wú Yǒuxìng is a relatively understudied but substantial body of work, of which Akiyoshi’s shīpíng is one of the more elaborated representatives.
Links
- See KR3eg004 for the base text.
- 溫疫論私評 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB