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 ZhōngXī 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 ZhōngXī 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
- 皮國立 Pí Guólì (Pi Kuo-li), Jìndài Zhōngyī de shēntǐ guān yǔ sīxiǎng zhuǎnxíng: Táng Zōnghǎi yǔ ZhōngXī 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 ZhōngXī huìtōng movement.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Seattle: Eastland, 2007.
- No standalone English translation located.