Yī lüè shísān piān 醫略十三篇
Thirteen Essays on Medical Outlines by 蔣寶素 (Jiǎng Bǎosù, hào Wènzhāi 問齋, 1795–1873)
About the work
The surviving published portion of Jiǎng Bǎosù’s massive 87-juǎn Yī lüè 醫略 — specifically, the liùyín 六淫 (six-excess) section in 13 piān with a 1-juǎn formulary appendix. The 13 piān treat the diseases caused by the six environmental excesses (fēng 風, hán 寒, shǔ 暑, shī 濕, zào 燥, huǒ 火) and the related epidemic categories (nüè 瘧, lì 痢, huòluàn 霍亂, zhàngqì 瘴氣). For each, Jiǎng presents pathology, differentiation, and treatment, supported by extensive personal case-records (yīàn 醫案).
Abstract
Composed at the end of the 1830s and printed in Dàoguāng 20 = 1840 with Jiǎng’s preface, the work is a substantial Dàoguāng-era contribution to the Qīng internal-medicine literature on environmentally-induced syndromes. The work is doctrinally polemical on two questions in particular:
(a) The reality of zhēnzhōngfēng: Jiǎng defends the classical doctrine that some wind-stroke cases are genuinely produced by external wind invasion — against the prevailing post-Liú-Héjiān, post-Dōngyuán, and post-Dānxī consensus that all zhōngfēng is internally generated by huǒ 火, qì 氣, or tán 痰.
(b) The fúxié doctrine for wēnrè: Jiǎng opens a chapter on the fúxié 伏邪 (latent evil) doctrine of warm-disease etiology — the principle that some warm-disease syndromes arise from earlier-contracted pathogen lying dormant in the body and emerging seasonally — and is one of the principal early-Qīng systematisers of this doctrine, which would become a central topic in the late-Qīng wēnbìng literature.
The diagnostic essays Guāngé kǎo 關格考 (on the guāngé obstruction syndrome) and Rényíng biàn 人迎辨 (on the rényíng pulse) are widely cited as model exercises in Qīng medical-textual criticism.
The work is properly an extract from Jiǎng’s larger Yī lüè, which was never fully published; only the liùyín section reached print in 1840. The remaining 70+ juǎn exist only in scattered manuscript fragments and are otherwise unrecovered. Modern editions: Beijing: Zhōngyī gǔjí chūbǎnshè (annotated and punctuated).
Translations and research
- Yī lüè shísān piān punctuated edition, Beijing: Zhōngyī gǔjí chūbǎnshè.
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. London: Routledge, 2011 — for the Qīng wēnbìng / fúxié context.
- No standalone English translation located.