Yīzōng jīnjiàn·Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué 醫宗金鑑·婦科心法要訣
The Golden Mirror of Medicine: Essential Mnemonics on the Heart-Method of Gynecology by 吳謙 (Wú Qiān) and the imperial editorial commission, Qiánlóng era
About the work
The six-juǎn gynecology section of the imperially-commissioned Yùzuǎn Yīzōng jīnjiàn 御纂醫宗金鑑 (the Imperial-Compiled Golden Mirror of Medicine, the foundational Qīng-period medical curriculum text, 90 juǎn, completed 1742 and printed 1749 — see KR3e0090 for the whole work). The Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué is juǎn 44–49 of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn. The work is composed in seven-character rhymed mnemonic verses (xīnfǎ yàojué 心法要訣, “essential mnemonics of the heart-method”) for clinical-pedagogical memorisation, with appended prose commentary and a complete formula appendix giving exact drug-by-drug compositions. The mnemonic form was specifically adopted for the imperial medical-examination curriculum: examination candidates at the Tàiyīyuàn 太醫院 were required to memorise the rhymed yàojué sections of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn. The gynecology section is structured along the canonical late-imperial tiáojīng 調經 → bēngdài 崩帶 → zhēngjiǎ 癥瘕 → sìyù 嗣育 → tāiqián 胎前 → chǎnhòu 產後 → qiányīn rǔjí 前陰乳疾 sequence (menstrual regulation → uterine bleeding and discharge → masses → fertility → ante-natal → post-natal → genital and breast diseases).
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw recension carries no separable imperial preface; that material appears in the head of the parent Yīzōng jīnjiàn. The gynecology section opens directly with the mnemonic verses: “男婦兩科同一治，所異調經崩帶癥。嗣育胎前並產後，前陰乳疾不相同” (“Men’s and women’s medicine are the same in treatment; what differs is menstrual regulation, bēngdài and masses; reproduction-and-fostering, ante-natal and post-natal, genital and breast diseases — these are not the same as men’s”).
Abstract
The Yīzōng jīnjiàn was commissioned by the Qiánlóng emperor on 14 Zhèngyuè 1739 (Qiánlóng 4); compiled under the editorial direction of 吳謙 Wú Qiān (字 Liùjí 六吉, Tàiyīyuàn yuànpàn 太醫院院判 = Director of the Imperial Medical Academy) and 劉裕鐸 Liú Yùduó; completed in 1742 (Qiánlóng 7); and printed in 1749 (Qiánlóng 14). The gynecology section, like the rest of the work, distils the canonical Sòng-Yuán-Míng medical tradition (Sùwèn, Língshū, Shānghán lùn, Jīnguì, 陳自明 Chén Zìmíng Fùrén dàquán liángfāng KR3e0038, 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng, 武之望 Wǔ Zhīwàng Jìyīn gāngmù KR3ei006, and the Sòng Héjì júfāng) into a standardised, examination-ready synthesis. The work’s particular indebtedness to the Jìyīn gāngmù in arrangement is widely acknowledged.
The mnemonic verses cover tiáojīng zhèngzhì (menstrual regulation), xiānqī 先期 (early-cycle), guòqī 過期 (delayed cycle), jīngbì 經閉 (amenorrhoea), bēnglòu 崩漏 (uterine flooding), dàixià 帶下 (vaginal discharge), zhēngjiǎ 癥瘕 (uterine masses), qiúzǐ 求子 (fertility), rènshēnzhūzhèng 妊娠諸症 (ante-natal disorders), línchǎn nánchǎn 臨產難產 (difficult labour), chǎnhòu zhūzhèng 產後諸症 (post-partum disorders), and the qiányīn rǔjí 前陰乳疾 (genital and breast conditions). The work codifies the standard late-imperial formula list — Sìjūnzǐ tāng 四君子湯, Liùjūnzǐ tāng 六君子湯, Bǔzhōng yìqì tāng 補中益氣湯, Sìwù tāng 四物湯, Xiāoyáo sǎn 逍遙散, Guīpí tāng 歸脾湯, Bāzhēn tāng 八珍湯, Shíquán dàbǔ tāng 十全大補湯, Lǐzhōng tāng 理中湯, Bāwèi dìhuáng wán 八味地黃丸, Jiāoài sìwù tāng 膠艾四物湯, etc. — as the canonical Qīng gynecological pharmacopoeia.
The Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué — alongside the parallel Yòukē xīnfǎ yàojué 幼科心法要訣 (paediatrics) and Shānghán xīnfǎ yàojué 傷寒心法要訣 — became the de facto standard textbook for Qīng-period gynecological pedagogy in both the Tàiyīyuàn curriculum and at provincial yīxué 醫學 schools. Its mnemonic verses were memorised verbatim by generations of Chinese-medicine students into the 20th century, and form the textual scaffolding of the modern PRC TCM-academy gynecology curriculum.
Translations and research
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China. London: Routledge, 2011 — for the Yīzōng jīnjiàn as imperial medical project.
- Asaf Goldschmidt, The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200. London: Routledge, 2008 — for the longue durée of the fùkē sub-discipline.
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010 — extensive treatment of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn gynecology synthesis.
- Yīzōng jīnjiàn punctuated and annotated modern editions: Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè (multiple editions, the standard reference being the 1973 edition reprinted with apparatus in the 1990s).
- No standalone English translation of the Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué located.
Other points of interest
The mnemonic form of the yàojué — seven-character rhymed verses — was deliberately designed for memorisation under examination conditions. The Qīng imperial Tàiyīyuàn required physician-candidates to recite specified portions verbatim. This pedagogical-mnemonic genre was distinctive of late-imperial Chinese-medicine education, with antecedents in Sòng-Yuán fù 賦 and gē 歌 verse-mnemonic medical texts but reaching its institutional apex in the Qīng Yīzōng jīnjiàn. As a result the work is the single most-quoted gynecological text in late-Qīng and Republican-era Chinese-medicine literature.