Nǚkē zhǐzhǎng 女科指掌
Pointing-to-the-Palm Guide to Women’s Medicine by 葉其蓁 (Yè Qízhēn = 葉心培 Yè Xīnpéi’s father; zì unknown; early Yōngzhèng era)
About the work
A five-juǎn gynecology textbook by the early-Yōngzhèng physician 葉其蓁 Yè Qízhēn (hào unrecorded), composed as a companion-volume to his 脈鏡 脈鏡 (Mirror of Pulse-Diagnosis) and his 十三科指掌 十三科指掌 (Pointing-to-the-Palm in the Thirteen Specialties). The zhǐzhǎng title (“as if pointing at [something] in one’s own palm”) — a Chinese idiom for “perfectly clear / readily intelligible” — declares the work’s pedagogic intent: a portable practitioner’s manual whose clarity allows students to grasp the entire gynecological specialty at a glance.
Prefaces
The KR hxwd _000.txt carries a xù by Chéngdū 張鵬翮 Zhāng Pénghé dated Yōngzhèng jiǎchén chūn wǔyuè 雍正甲辰春五月 = fifth month of Yōngzhèng 2 (= 1724). Zhāng Pénghé (1649–1725) was a major early-Qīng official and scholar, Wényuāngé dàxuéshì 文淵閣大學士 (Grand Secretary of the Wényuāngé) — a substantial endorsement of the work. The preface narrates: 葉心培 Yè Xīnpéi accompanied Wángshēng 楚林王甥 to the capital for examinations and brought his father Yè Qízhēn’s recent works (the Màijìng and the Shísānkē zhǐzhǎng). Zhāng praises the Yōngzhèng emperor’s patronage of medicine — particularly the imperial edict commissioning the Yīzōng jīnjiàn’s antecedent project to establish Língshū, Sùwèn, Jīnguì, and materia medica as authoritative texts. The preface notes that the Shísānkē zhǐzhǎng is the source whence the gynecology section was extracted.
The fánlì 凡例 (editorial principles) outline the work’s structure: a zǒngkuò 總括 (master mnemonic verse), then xù zhūjiā zhī lùn 序諸家之論 (collected discussions), then mài 脈 (pulse-diagnosis), then fāng 方 (formulas).
Abstract
Yè Qízhēn 葉其蓁 is a Yōngzhèng-era physician otherwise undocumented in standard reference works; his son 葉心培 Yè Xīnpéi brought his father’s manuscripts to Beijing for the 1724 examination season, securing Zhāng Pénghé’s prefatorial endorsement and publication. The work is firmly dated to 1724 (Yōngzhèng 2) by Zhāng Pénghé’s preface.
The Nǚkē zhǐzhǎng is one section of Yè Qízhēn’s larger pedagogical Shísānkē zhǐzhǎng (a thirteen-specialty medical curriculum text — i.e. covering the canonical thirteen sub-fields of Qīng-period clinical medicine). The work uses the gēlùnmàifāng 歌論脈方 (mnemonic-discussion-pulse-formula) four-part schema for each clinical entry, an organisational structure that became standard in 18th-century Qīng medical pedagogy and was later canonised by the imperial Yīzōng jīnjiàn (1742; see KR3ei007). The Nǚkē zhǐzhǎng is thus historically significant as one of the principal antecedents of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn·Fùkē pedagogical format.
Translations and research
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- No dedicated study of the Nǚkē zhǐzhǎng located.
Links
- No verified Wikipedia or Wikidata entry located.
- 女科指掌 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB