Fùrén guī 婦人規
Compass of Women’s Medicine by 張介賓 (Zhāng Jièbīn = Zhāng Jǐngyuè, 1563–1640, late Míng)
About the work
A two-juǎn (upper and lower volume) gynecological treatise by the great late-Míng physician 張介賓 Zhāng Jièbīn (Jǐngyuè 景岳) of Shānyīn 山陰 (Zhèjiāng). The work forms part of his comprehensive medical encyclopedia Jǐngyuè quánshū 景岳全書 (KR3e0086, 64 juǎn, completed during his last decade and printed 1624 / 1640). The Fùrén guī is the fùkē 婦科 section of juǎn 38 ff. The work is organised under nine categories (jiǔzhèng 九證, “nine principal-type”) explicitly distinguished as the nine female-specific clinical categories: jīngmài lèi 經脈類 (menstrual cycle), tāiyùn lèi 胎孕類 (pregnancy), chǎnyù lèi 產育類 (parturition), chǎnhòu lèi 產後類 (post-natal), dàizhuó lèi 帶濁類 (vaginal discharge and turbid issue), rǔbìng lèi 乳病類 (breast conditions), zǐsì lèi 子嗣類 (fertility / progeny), zhēngjiǎ lèi 癥瘕類 (uterine masses), and qiányīn lèi 前陰類 (genital conditions). All other diseases that women share with men are referred to the relevant general-medicine sections of the Quánshū.
Prefaces
The KR hxwd _001.txt opens with the zǒnglùn lèi 總論類 (General Discussion category), beginning with Zhāng’s exposition of the proverbial difficulty of fùkē: “Níngzhì shí nánzǐ, mòzhì yī fùrén” — “better treat ten men than one woman”. Zhāng distinguishes the intrinsic difficulty (the closed-quarters constraints of late-imperial elite female patients which prevent visual inspection — wàngsè 望色 — through screens and bedcurtains) from the constitutional difficulty (women’s yōujū duōyù 幽居多郁, “secluded living producing much stagnation,” generates blood-and-qi disorders unfamiliar to general practice). The work is in the larger Quánshū’s preface and editorial frame.
Abstract
Zhāng Jièbīn (1563–1640, see 張介賓) is the foremost late-Míng systematic physician and the principal champion of the wēnbǔ 溫補 (warming-tonifying) school in opposition to the Yuán-Míng-dominant Zhū Dānxī yángyúyīnbùzú 陽有餘陰不足 doctrine. The Fùrén guī applies his Mìngmén 命門 / kidney-fire therapeutic framework to gynecology: amenorrhoea, infertility, and post-partum cold-syndromes are systematically treated through fúyáng wēnbǔ 扶陽溫補 (supporting yáng, warming-tonifying) with Bāwèi dìhuáng wán 八味地黃丸, Yòuguī wán 右歸丸, Yòuguī yǐn 右歸飲, and similar yang-tonifying formulas. This stands in deliberate doctrinal opposition to both the 李東垣 Lǐ Dōngyuán Bǔzhōng yìqì tāng spleen-stomach framework and the 朱丹溪 Zhū Dānxī zīyīnjiànghuǒ yin-supplementing-fire-suppressing framework, the two dominant late-Yuán / Míng gynecological doctrines.
The Fùrén guī is one of the principal late-Míng gynecological works, and the canonical exposition of the wēnbǔ approach to women’s medicine. It was the doctrinal antecedent for major Qīng wēnbǔ gynecologies including the 醫林集要 醫林集要 and many of the family-lineage gynecologies. Composition: completed during Zhāng’s last decade (1620s–1630s); printed within the Jǐngyuè quánshū in 1624 and reissued in expanded form in 1640. notBefore 1624 / notAfter 1640.
Translations and research
- Jǐngyuè quánshū — modern punctuated editions, Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè and others. The standard reference text for the Fùrén guī.
- Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 — Chapter 6 treats Zhāng Jièbīn as a principal late-Míng systematiser of gynecology.
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- No standalone English translation of the Fùrén guī located.
Other points of interest
The Fùrén guī’s extraction from the Jǐngyuè quánshū for independent circulation reflects a Qīng-period practice of disaggregating major medical encyclopedias for specialised practitioner audiences; comparable extractions include the Yīzōng jīnjiàn·Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué KR3ei007 from the parent Yīzōng jīnjiàn and the Nǚkē jīngyào KR3ei018 from the Féngshì jǐnnáng mìlù.
Links
- Wikipedia (zh)
- No separate Wikidata entry for the Fùrén guī located.
- 婦人規 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB