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濟生集

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Text ID
KR3ei014
Date
1896–1896
Dynasty
清

Jìshēng jí 濟生集

Anthology for Aiding Life by 王春亭 (Wáng Chūntíng = Wáng Shàngdá 王上達, late Qīng)

About the work

A six-juǎn combined gynecological-paediatric anthology compiled by Wáng Shàngdá 王上達 (hào Chūntíng 春亭) and printed in 1896 (Guāngxù 22). The work covers ante-natal and post-natal women’s medicine, neonatal care, infant smallpox (dòu 痘 / guǐ 㾦), childhood convulsions (jíjīng 急驚 / mànjīng 慢驚), and other paediatric emergencies — explicitly framed as a household manual for use in remote rural localities where qualified physicians could not be reached. The work descends from the Dàshēng yàozhǐ 大生要旨 (see KR3ei075 for 唐千頃 Táng Qiānqǐng’s Xùzēng Dàshēng yàozhǐ) and Dáshēng biān 達生編 (KR3ei055) tradition of late-imperial jiātíngyī 家庭醫 (family-medical) literature, intended for sponsored woodblock printing and free distribution to the rural poor as a Confucian charitable enterprise.

Prefaces

The KR hxwd _000.txt carries two prefaces:

  1. The author’s zìxù 自序 by Wáng Shàngdá Chūntíngshì 王上達春亭氏, dated Guāngxù èrshíèr nián suì zài bǐngshēn yuányuè 光緒二十二年歲在丙申元月 = first month of Guāngxù 22 (1896). The preface laments the high rates of maternal and infant mortality in rural areas where physicians cannot be reached, denouncing reliance on uneducated midwives (“wěnpó” 穩婆) who frighten labouring women into premature pushing, and identifying the Jìshēng jí as a portable household reference modelled on the Dàshēng yàozhǐ and Dáshēng biān. He acknowledges patron-donors who underwrote the printing for free distribution.

  2. The second preface by 郭謙益 Guō Qiānyì of Yǒngshàng 甬上 (= Níngbō 寧波), dated Guāngxù èrshíèr nián yǐwèi suì xiǎochūn yuè 光緒二十二年乙未歲小春月 = 10th month of the cyclical yǐwèi year preceding publication (the dating-clash between Guāngxù 22 = bǐngshēn and the cyclical yǐwèi signature suggests this preface was written before formal publication, in the 10th month of 1895). Written from the Xiàoliántáng dōngshè 孝廉堂之東舍 (the eastern chamber of the Xiàolián Hall).

Abstract

Wáng Shàngdá 王上達 (hào Chūntíng 春亭) is a late-Qīng compiler-physician otherwise undocumented in standard bibliographic reference works; his sole transmitted work is the Jìshēng jí. The fāfán 發凡 (editorial principles) of the work explicitly position it in the Dàshēng yàozhǐ / Dáshēng biān tradition of household medical manuals — works intended for charitable woodblock printing and free distribution. The 1896 printing was patron-funded; the preface mentions multiple donors who contributed printing costs.

Doctrinally the work is conservative-eclectic, drawing on 王洪緒 Wáng Hóngxù (Wàikē zhèngzhì quánshēng jí KR3ek017) on smallpox-and-pustule management, 莊在田 Zhuāng Zàitián on warming-tonifying childhood emergencies, and the standard Yīzōng jīnjiàn gynecological synthesis. The work explicitly rejects routine qīnghuǒ jiědú 清火解毒 (clearing-fire-detoxifying) prescription for childhood smallpox, advocating instead tuōdú 托毒 (supporting-eruption) warming therapy — a doctrinal position aligned with the post-王孟英-Wáng-Mèngyīng late-Qīng wēnbǔ 溫補 reaction against routine cooling-and-detoxifying paediatrics.

The work was widely distributed in Zhèjiāng-Jiāngsū charitable medical networks in the late Qīng and survives in multiple Guāngxù-era woodblock impressions. It is one of the principal documentary witnesses for the jiātíngyī (family-medical) literary genre at the very end of the imperial period.

Translations and research

  • Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010 — for the family-manual genre and its charitable-distribution context.
  • No dedicated study of the Jìshēng jí located. Modern reprint editions are available in PRC late-imperial-Chinese-medicine reference series.

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