Xuèzhèng lùn 血證論
Treatise on Blood-Syndromes by 唐宗海 (Táng Zōnghǎi, zì Róngchuān 容川, 1846–1897)
About the work
The foundational systematic monograph on xuèzhèng 血證 (blood-disorders) in Qīng Chinese medicine, in 8 juǎn, completed in Guāngxù jiǎshēn = 1884. Táng Zōnghǎi codifies a four-stage therapeutic schema for blood-disorders — zhǐxuè 止血 (arresting hemorrhage), xiāoyū 消瘀 (dispersing extravasated blood), níngxuè 寧血 (stabilising the blood-flow), bǔxuè 補血 (restoring blood-volume) — and applies it across the principal blood-syndrome presentations: tùxuè 吐血 (vomiting blood), nùxuè 衄血 (epistaxis), biànxuè 便血 (bloody stool), bēnglòu 崩漏 (uterine flooding), chǐnù 齒衄, qiàonù 竅衄, etc.
Abstract
The Xuèzhèng lùn is the principal late-Qīng exhibit for the Zhōng-Xī huìtōng 中西匯通 (Sino-Western synthesis) movement of which Táng was the leading first-generation theorist. Táng was a Sìchuān physician who passed the Metropolitan exam in 1889 (after the work’s composition); he had access to translated Western anatomical and physiological materials through the missionary press in Shànghǎi and used them to ground his Chinese-medical doctrine of blood in a more empirical-anatomical register, while remaining doctrinally anchored in the Sùwèn / Língshū and 張機 Zhāng Zhòngjǐng. The four-stage therapeutic schema zhǐ – xiāo – níng – bǔ is Táng’s original synthesis and has remained the canonical sequence in modern TCM blood-disorder management.
The work is doctrinally significant as the first sustained Chinese-medical attempt to integrate Western cardiovascular anatomy (heart-as-pump, blood-circulation) with the classical Chinese understanding of qìxuè 氣血 — Táng treats the Western circulatory model as compatible with, not corrosive to, the qì-and-xuè doctrine, and uses it to refine differential diagnosis (particularly in the localisation of hemorrhage). The Zhōng-Xī huìtōng current that Táng founded would be carried forward by 張錫純 Zhāng Xīchún in the early Republic and remains the principal precedent for contemporary integrative-medicine projects.
The catalog and CBDB give Táng’s birth year variously: CBDB id 87672 has 1846–1897; some Chinese sources give 1851–1897. The 1846 date is followed here as the better-attested.
The text was rapidly received in late-Qīng and Republican medical circles, with reprints throughout the 1890s and continuing through the 20th century. Modern punctuated editions (Rénmín wèishēng, 1957 / 1980) are widely available.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- 皮國立 Pí Guólì (Pi Kuo-li), Jìndài Zhōngyī de shēntǐ guān yǔ sīxiǎng zhuǎnxíng: Táng Zōnghǎi yǔ Zhōng-Xī yī huìtōng shídài 近代中醫的身體觀與思想轉型：唐宗海與中西醫匯通時代. Beijing: Sānlián, 2008 — the definitive Chinese-language monograph on Táng.
- Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014 — situates Táng in the longer arc of the Sino-Western synthesis.
- Hinrichs & Barnes 2013, Chinese Medicine and Healing, on the Qīng Zhōng-Xī huìtōng movement.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Seattle: Eastland, 2007.
- No standalone English translation located.