Yīxué miàodì 醫學妙諦
The Subtle Truths of Medicine by 何其偉 (Hé Qíwěi, hào Shūtián 書田, 1774–1837)
About the work
A three-juǎn didactic medical primer in 76 chapters covering internal, gynaecological, and paediatric medicine. Each chapter cites Nèijīng / Língshū / Sùwèn and standard authorities, then condenses bìngyīn 病因 and zhìfǎ 治法 into seven-syllable mnemonic verses (qīyán gēkuò 七言歌括) followed by symptom indications and recommended formulae. Designed as a memorisable clinical reference for students and family-school disciples in the Qīngpǔ Héshì hereditary medical lineage.
Abstract
Hé Qíwěi composed the work during his mature practice in the early decades of the 19th century — likely between 1820 and his death in 1837. The composition belongs to the same broad family-school pedagogical project as the contemporary Hé shì xūláo xīnchuán 何氏虛勞心傳 (KR3eh036) of his ancestor 何炫 Hé Xuàn, with which the Yīxué miàodì is often paired in the Qīngpǔ-school canon.
The transmission history is partly disrupted: much of the original manuscript stock was lost in the Tàipíng-era 兵燹 (1860–1864) in the Lower Yángzǐ. The received recension was reconstructed by 陳墨蓀 Chén Mòsūn from surviving manuscript copies and printed at the YúnGuì jiéshǔ 雲貴節署 (Hé’s grand-nephew 王文韶 Wáng Wénsháo then serving as YúnGuì governor-general) in 1892, three decades after the wars. Wáng Wénsháo’s preface is the principal documentary source for the post-1860 transmission.
Hé Qíwěi is best known historically not for the Yīxué miàodì but for his prescriptions for opium-addiction treatment (jìsuān wán 忌酸丸 and bǔzhèng wán 補正丸), which 林則徐 Lín Zéxù promulgated in Guǎngdōng during the 1839 opium-suppression campaign. The connection puts Hé at the intersection of medical and political history at the moment of the opium crisis.
Translations and research
- Included in Zhēnběn yīshū jíchéng 珍本醫書集成 (Shanghai: Shìjiè shūjú, 1936; reprints).
- For the opium-medicine context: Frank Dikötter, Lars Laamann, and Zhou Xun, Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.
- Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Seattle: Eastland, 2007 — for the Hé-shì lineage.
- No substantial Western-language treatment of the work itself located.