Jīnguì yì 金匱翼
Wings to the Jīnguì [yàolüè] by 尤怡 (Yóu Yí, zì Zàijīng 在涇, hào Zhuōwú 拙吾, ?–1749)
About the work
Yóu Yí’s eight-juǎn “wings” supplementing his own celebrated commentary Jīnguì xīndiǎn 金匱心典 on Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s Jīn guì yào lüè. Where the Xīndiǎn glosses Zhòngjǐng’s text directly, the Yì gathers and discriminates the wider clinical literature on the same forty-eight zábìng 雜病 categories (organised in 48 mén 門), each opening with a tǒnglùn 統論 (general discussion), followed by zhèng 證 differentiation and treatment, with the author’s àn 按 commentary tying the various authorities back to the Zhòngjǐng base.
Abstract
Yóu Yí composed the Jīnguì yì in the last two decades of his life, in retirement at Hǔqiū 虎丘 (Sūzhōu), and died in 1749 before publication. The text was preserved in manuscript by his pupils 沈平舟 Shěn Píngzhōu and 陳星門 Chén Xīngmén and saw its first printing only in Qiánlóng 33 = 1768, sponsored by Yóu’s uncle 尤世輔 Yóu Shìfǔ (號 Yuèyán lǎorén 岳岩老人) at the Sīyǒngtáng 思永堂 in Hǔqiū Shāntáng 虎丘山塘 — i.e. nineteen years posthumously. A further preface by 徐錦 Xú Jǐn dated Jiāqìng 18 (1813) and a preface by 柏雪峰 Bǎi Xuěfēng record additional editorial work bringing the text to its received form. The composition window of “1730–1749” given here brackets Yóu’s mature working years up to his death.
The work’s analytical axes are the Zhòngjǐng-school standard four — cold/heat (寒熱), deficiency/excess (虛實), tonification/draining (補瀉), warming/cooling (溫涼). Yóu’s signature method is to let the historical authorities argue against one another and then resolve the dispute with a clear clinical preference. The work is the principal exhibit for Yóu Yí’s reputation as one of the most learned and judicious Qīng scholar-physicians, and is paired in the standard Qīng medical canon with his Jīnguì xīndiǎn and the related Shānghán guànzhū jí 傷寒貫珠集 (KR3ed049 tradition).
The brief biographical sketch by Yóu’s grandson 尤世楠 Yóu Shìnán — preserved at the head of the Jīnguì yì — records Yóu’s poverty (his wife taking in needlework to keep the household), his deep friendships with the Sūzhōu literary circle (方東華 Fāng Dōnghuá, 顧嗣立 Gù Xiùyě 秀野, 沈德潛 Shěn Guīyú 歸愚 and others), and his serene approach to dying — abstaining from food and medicine, calligraphy steady to the end. Yóu died of an illness contracted in jǐsì 己巳 (1749), having refused all treatment.
Translations and research
- Jīnguì yì punctuated and annotated edition, Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, 1956 / 1986.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Seattle: Eastland, 2007 — situates Yóu Yí among the principal Qing scholar-physicians.
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. London: Routledge, 2011 — treats the Sūzhōu intellectual circles in which Yóu was embedded.
- No substantial standalone Western-language study of the Jīnguì yì located.