Shěnshì nǚkē jíyào 沈氏女科輯要
The Shěn Family’s Compilation of Essentials of Women’s Medicine by 沈又彭 (Shěn Yòupéng = Shěn Yáofēng, fl. 1750–1780, mid-Qīng); supplementary annotations by 徐虹橋 Xú Hóngqiáo; edited and printed by 王士雄 (Wáng Shìxióng = Wáng Mèngyīng, 1808–1868) in 1850
About the work
A two-juǎn gynecology essentials handbook by the mid-Qiánlóng Pínghú 平湖 physician 沈又彭 Shěn Yòupéng (字 Yáofēng 堯封). The work is one of three coordinated medical compilations Shěn produced around 1764 (alongside the Shānghán lùn dú 傷寒論讀 and the Yījīng dú 醫經讀 KR3ea043). The Nǚkē jíyào extracts the most-cited classical and Sòng-Yuán-Míng passages on women’s medicine — beginning with the Sùwèn “二七而天癸至” passage — and arranges them topically with Shěn’s own annotations and clinical glosses. The work is structured by jīngshuǐ 經水 (menses), jīngbùtiáo 月事不調 (menstrual irregularity), biànsèjíbìng 辨色及病 (colour-discrimination), bēnglòu 崩漏, dàixià 帶下, tāiqián 胎前, chǎnhòu 產後, fùrén zábìng 婦人雜病, etc. Each entry juxtaposes canonical citation, Sòng / Yuán / Míng commentary, and Shěn’s own ànyǔ 按語 (commentary).
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw _000.txt opens with the Wángxù 王序 (Wáng’s preface) by 王士雄 Wáng Shìxióng (Mèngyīng 孟英), dated Dàoguāng gēngxū zhòngdōng 道光庚戌仲冬 = mid-winter of Dàoguāng 30 (= 1850). Wáng narrates: he was already acquainted with Shěn Yáofēng’s Yījīng dú and Shānghán lùn dú as authoritative editions, and knew of the existence of a Nǚkē jíyào but the manuscript was rarely circulated. Wáng’s father-in-law 徐虹橋 Xú Hóngqiáo had inherited and annotated the original manuscript; on Xú’s death the manuscript passed to Wáng’s brother-in-law 友珊 Yǒushān. The official 楊素園 Yáng Sùyuán of Hángzhōu requested a transcription; Wáng persuaded Yǒushān that ancestral filial piety required the work’s preservation through printing, took the manuscript, made his own further annotations, and issued the printed edition. Wáng’s prefatorial signature is Wáng Shìxióng shū yú Qiánzhāi 王士雄書於潛齋 (Wáng Shìxióng wrote at Qiánzhāi).
Abstract
Shěn Yòupéng (fl. 1750–1780, see 沈又彭) was a mid-Qiánlóng Pínghú 平湖 (Zhèjiāng) physician of clinical-pragmatic orientation, sceptical of the yùnqì 運氣 (climatological cosmology) doctrine and aligned with the Sūzhōu-Pínghú milieu of 薛雪 Xuē Xuě and 葉天士 Yè Tiānshì. His three coordinated 1764 works — Shānghán lùn dú, Yījīng dú, and Nǚkē jíyào — form a triadic dú (“readings”) textbook series for general practitioners. The Nǚkē jíyào circulated primarily in manuscript among Pínghú-Hángzhōu medical lineages until Wáng Shìxióng (Mèngyīng) discovered and printed it in 1850. For composition, notBefore 1770 / notAfter 1780 brackets the working range; the printed edition is firmly 1850.
The work is the principal textual basis for the later 張山雷 Zhāng Shānléi Shěnshì nǚkē jíyào jiānshū 沈氏女科輯要箋疏 (annotated commentary, see KR3ei041), which was issued in the early 20th century and incorporated Wáng Shìxióng’s 1850 annotations together with Zhāng Shānléi’s own further philological and clinical glosses. The 1850 Wáng-edition recension preserves the Shěn-Xú-Wáng tripartite textual layer: (1) Shěn Yòupéng’s mid-Qiánlóng base text; (2) Xú Hóngqiáo’s late-Qiánlóng / early-Jiāqìng supplementary annotations; (3) Wáng Mèngyīng’s 1850 ànyǔ commentary (introduced with “Wáng Mèngyīng àn” 王孟英按). Each stratum is doctrinally distinct: Shěn is qīngshí 清實 (clear-and-pragmatic), Xú adds clinical case observations, and Wáng’s àn contributions reflect his Wēnbìng 溫病-school sensibility (caution against routine warming and ginseng).
The work is one of the most-cited late-Qiánlóng / Dàoguāng gynecological textbooks, and remains in active use in modern PRC TCM gynecology education in the Zhāng-Shānléi-annotated form.
Translations and research
- 張山雷 Zhāng Shānléi, Shěnshì nǚkē jíyào jiānshū 沈氏女科輯要箋疏 (see KR3ei041) — the standard early-20th-century critical commentary.
- Modern punctuated edition: Shěnshì nǚkē jíyào in the Zhōngyī gǔjí zhēnběn cóngkān 中醫古籍珍本叢刊 (Húnán kēxué jìshù chūbǎnshè).
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge, 2011 — contextualises Wáng Shìxióng’s 1850 editorial intervention.
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
The textual transmission is a textbook case of multi-generational scholarly compilation in late-imperial Chinese medicine: a mid-Qiánlóng base-text by a clinically-oriented provincial physician, supplementary annotations by a son-in-law, and editorial mid-Dàoguāng printing by a famous Wēnbìng master, eventually re-commentaried by an early-Republican philologist. The work’s preservation depended on three successive marriage / family transmissions: Shěn → Xú (son-in-law) → Wáng (grand-son-in-law / nephew-in-law).
Links
- Wikipedia (zh)
- Wikidata: no separate entry.
- 沈氏女科輯要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB