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女科仙方

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Text ID
KR3ei043
Date
1800–1897
Dynasty
清

Nǚkē xiānfāng 女科仙方

Immortal Formulas in Women’s Medicine attributed to 傅山 Fù Shān (Qīng popular ascription); 1897 imprint edited by 張廷佐 Zhāng Tíngzuǒ (字 Mǐnchén 敏臣) of Yānshān 燕山

About the work

A four-juǎn late-Qīng popular gynecology in the FùQīngzhǔ pseudepigraphic tradition. The work circulated under the title Fùkē xiānfāng 婦科仙方 / Nǚkē xiānfāng 女科仙方 (“Immortal Formulas of Gynecology”), an ascriptive marker placing the work in the lineage of 傅山 Fù Shān (Daoist-physician famed as a “Red-Robed Daoist” 朱衣道士). The work covers the canonical fùkē sequence — tiáojīng, bēnglòu, dàixià, qiúzǐ, tāiqián, chǎnhòu — with prescriptive formulae in the FùQīngzhǔ style.

Prefaces

The KR hxwd _000.txt carries a bá 跋 (colophon) by 張廷佐 Zhāng Tíngzuǒ (zì Mǐnchén 敏臣) of Yānshān 燕山, dated Guāngxù suìzài dīngyǒu bǎihuā shēngrì 光緒歲在丁酉百花生日 = the “Birthday of the Hundred Flowers” (2nd month of Guāngxù dīngyǒu = 1897). Zhāng narrates: the Fùkē xiānfāng had long been in circulation but he had used it only casually until his wife fell ill; after multiple physicians failed, he consulted the work and found a prescription that produced cure in one dose. Several acquaintances subsequently used the work with consistent excellent results. Zhāng decided to re-print it because the prevailing woodblock impressions had become “máohuàn kǒngduō” (worn and full of errors). One important editorial intervention: the original fánlì 凡例 had noted that “all references to rénshēn 人參 in this work mean dǎngshēn 黨參 (Codonopsis, a cheaper substitute)”; Zhāng disagreed — “the medicinal powers of the two differ vastly, they cannot be used interchangeably” — and edited the references to specify dǎngshēn explicitly where the popular formula assumed it, reserving liáoshēn 遼參 (= true Manchurian ginseng) for cases where genuine ginseng is required.

Abstract

The work is one of the family of Qīng popular gynecologies circulating under the FùQīngzhǔ pseudepigraphic ascription. The 1897 Zhāng Tíngzuǒ imprint is the terminus ante quem; the underlying composition is best bracketed notBefore 1800 (= when the FùQīngzhǔ literary corpus established itself in late-Qīng popular circulation) and notAfter 1897. The catalog meta records no specific author and dynasty unspecified.

Zhāng Tíngzuǒ’s editorial intervention on the rénshēn / dǎngshēn substitution is of independent interest: it documents the late-Qīng commodity-context of medical practice, in which rénshēn (true ginseng) was prohibitively expensive while dǎngshēn had become the popular substitute. The original work’s fánlì instruction to read all “rénshēn” references as “dǎngshēn” reflects the popular-practitioner economic reality; Zhāng’s restoration of the distinction reflects a more rigorous late-Qīng pharmacological position.

Translations and research

  • Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
  • No dedicated study located.

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