Bùjū jí 不居集
A Collection of the Unsettled by 吳澄 (Wú Chéng, zì Shìnà 士納, hào Kǔshān 坤山 / Èān 諤庵, Qing physician of Xīn’ān, fl. 1727–1739)
About the work
A fifty-juǎn systematic monograph on consumptive / depletion disorders (xūláo 虛勞) by the Xīn’ān-school 新安 physician Wú Chéng — distinct from the Yuán Neo-Confucian Wú Chéng (1249–1333) of the same name. The title Bùjū jí 不居集 (“collection of the unsettled / non-resident”) refers to the elusive, “non-resident” pathology of xūsǔn 虛損 — a class of chronic wasting conditions Wú treats as inadequately handled by conventional supplementation regimens. The work develops a distinctive wàisǔn 外損 vs. nèisǔn 內損 nosology, opposing simple DōngyuánDānxī tonification with attention to externally-induced depletion (residual evil-qi, post-febrile sequelae) requiring purgative or discharging therapy alongside supplementation.
Abstract
Wú Chéng’s preface dates the work’s compositional process across the years Yōngzhèng dīngwèi = 1727 to Qiánlóng jǐwèi = 1739 — a multi-year compilation in the manner characteristic of the great Xīn’ān-school 新安 xūláo monographs. The composition window 1727–1739 here reflects this; the commonly cited completion date is 1739.
The Xīn’ān-school context — Huīzhōu 徽州 (modern Shèxiàn 歙縣, Anhui) — is one of the great regional centres of late-imperial Chinese medicine, with hereditary medical families closely intertwined with the merchant-literati elite of the salt-trade economy. Wú Chéng’s Bùjū jí is the major Qīng Xīn’ān-school contribution to the xūláo / xūsǔn literature, alongside 汪綺石 Wāng Qǐshí’s Lǐxū yuánjiàn (KR3eh042) and 葛乾孫 Gě Kějiǔ’s earlier Shíyào shénshū (KR3eh041).
Critical disambiguation: the Qīng physician Wú Chéng of the Bùjū jí is a different man from the Yuán Neo-Confucian philosopher Wú Chéng 吳澄 (1249–1333; CBDB 10084), with whom he is regularly confused in older bibliographies and CBDB-driven catalogs. The Qīng physician has no CBDB record; his working dates are bracketed by his preface (1727) and the work’s completion (1739).
Translations and research
- Xīn’ān yījí cóngshū 新安醫籍叢書 (Anhui kēxué jìshù chūbǎnshè, 1990s) — the standard modern critical edition with detailed prefatory study.
- Charlotte Furth, “Becoming Alternative? Modern Transformations of Chinese Medicine,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 53 (2011) — context for the xūláo discourse.
- Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 (UBC 2014) — on xūláo / consumption as a pre-modern category.
- No standalone English translation located.