Chǎnhòu shíbā lùn 產後十八論
Eighteen Treatises on Post-Partum Disorders by 道先氏 Dàoxiānshì (fl. 1729)
About the work
A short single-juǎn practical treatise on eighteen archetypal post-partum disorders (chǎnhòu shíbā lùn), each presenting a particular post-partum syndrome (failed delivery from heat-induced foetal death, retained dead foetus, retained placenta, xuěyūn faint with black spots, dry-mouth and heart-anxiety, chills-and-fever with headache, generalised body cold or swelling, post-partum mania, post-partum aphasia, post-partum diarrhoea, joint pain, severe metrorrhagia, qì-reversal cough, chest-fullness with vomiting, dysuria/constipation, dry-tongue and nosebleed, post-partum spasm from coitus, and abdominal disorder with throat sounds). Each section names the syndrome, identifies its cause (typically a variant of bàixuě 敗血 — undischarged “spoiled blood” — congesting different organ-systems), and prescribes a herbal decoction (yǐnzǐ 引子) to be taken with three qián of a universal nine-ingredient base powder. The base formula (red flower, official cinnamon, prepared dìhuáng, dāngguī, black soya bean, ézhú, red peony, fried púhuáng, dried ginger) is presented as a “divinely effective tested prescription” (shénqí yànfāng 神奇驗方).
Prefaces
The preface, signed Yōngzhèng jǐyǒu sānyuè shuò Méngxī Juéhétú Dàoxiānshì mànshū 雍正己酉三月朔濛溪覺河圖道先氏漫書 (first day of the third month of Yōngzhèng 7 = 1729, “loosely written by Dàoxiānshì of Juéhétú at Méngxī”), is a layperson’s account: the author, by his own admission “never a believer in medicine” (素不知醫，且不信醫) and dismissive of the village physicians’ tendency to “obstinately follow shallow opinions and recklessly treat patients” (偏執淺見，任意妄治), recounts how his own daughter-in-law in the dīngyǒu year (1717) faced a life-threatening obstructed labour. After ten-odd physicians could do nothing, his sister’s husband Mr Shī 施君 gave him a manuscript copy of the Chǎnhòu shíbā lùn obtained “from the shìyī 世醫” (a hereditary medical family). One dose saved mother and child. Over subsequent years he used the formulas to treat three or four further obstetrical crises in his extended family, then began sharing it with friends and clan members; the cumulative track-record of “a hundred uses, a hundred successes” (百投百效) eventually compelled him to print it for public benefit.
Abstract
The work is a yīnshū 民書 (popular-medical pamphlet) of a recognised early-Qīng type: a layman’s case-book around a single “miraculously effective” master-formula. Its eighteen sections are not anatomically or aetiologically systematic but are organised around the diagnostic topos of bàixuě 敗血 (“spoiled blood”) — undischarged uterine blood that, after parturition, supposedly flows into the various viscera (heart, lungs, liver, intestines, joints, brain, eyes, throat) and there induces the various post-partum syndromes. The master-formula is thus presented as universally applicable: change only the yǐnzǐ decoction (滑石+榆皮, 童便+陳酒, 當歸, 元胡索, 牛膝, etc.) according to which organ-system is afflicted, and the patient will recover.
The author 道先氏 Dàoxiānshì (“the Dàoxiān master”) is an entirely obscure figure; the preface gives only his self-description as a layman from 濛溪 (Méngxī, probably a place in Zhèjiāng or Jiāngsū), studio name 覺河圖 (“Awakening Yellow-River Diagram”). The shìyī 世醫 source of the original manuscript is unidentified. The work entered the late-Qīng / early-Republic popular obstetrical literature and was repeatedly reprinted as a chapbook through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; it forms part of the Hǎixià wàidài 海下外帶 (hxwd) reprint corpus that supplied the KR3ei recension.
The catalog meta dynasty 清 is correct; the preface fixes composition to 1729 precisely, so notBefore / notAfter both = 1729.
Translations and research
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010 — for the early-Qīng popular obstetrical pamphlet genre and the bàixuě doctrine.
- No dedicated study of this particular pamphlet located.
Links
- No verified Wikipedia or Wikidata entry located.
- 產後十八論 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB