Zhìlì jiéyào xīnshū 治痢捷要新書
A New Book of Practical Essentials for Treating Dysentery by 丁國瑞 (Dīng Guóruì, 清)
About the work
A late-Qīng clinical handbook on the treatment of dysentery (lìjí 痢疾), in 1 juǎn. The text is structured as a syndrome-and-prescription manual for use by working physicians, in the same general idiom as the later Republican-era Zhìlì nánzhēn (KR3eg043). Together the two texts represent the dysentery-clinical-handbook genre across the late-Qīng / Republican transition.
Abstract
Dysentery (lìjí 痢疾) was a major endemic and seasonal-epidemic disease in late-imperial and Republican China, with the standard Qīng wēnbìng doctrinal treatment as a shīrè (damp-heat) disorder. The principal prescriptions are Sháoyào tāng 芍藥湯, Báitóuwēng tāng 白頭翁湯, and the xiāngliánhuángqín 香連黃芩 prescriptions.
Dīng’s handbook presents this apparatus in compressed practical form. The title’s jiéyào 捷要 (“practical essentials”) indicates the working-physician orientation. Author lifedates and detailed dating are not preserved (see 丁國瑞 person note).
Translations and research
- Hinrichs, T. J. and Linda L. Barnes (eds.), Chinese Medicine and Healing. Harvard Belknap, 2013 — context on Qīng dysentery practice.
- No substantial dedicated secondary literature located.