Wèishēng jiābǎo chǎnkē bèiyào 衛生家寶產科備要
Family-Treasure Manual of Hygiene — Essentials for Obstetrics by 朱端章 (Zhū Duānzhāng, fl. Chúnxī era 1174–1189)
About the work
The single most important surviving witness to Southern-Sòng obstetrical literature. An eight-juǎn compilation in which the editor — a Sòng official, not a professional physician — has systematically anthologised the principal obstetrical and pediatric materials of the Wàitái mìyào, Shèngjì zǒnglù, Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn fāng, the now-lost Sòng obstetrical compendia of Lǐ Shīshèng 李師聖 (Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí 產育寶慶集) and Yú Liú 虞流 (Bèichǎn jìyòng fāng 備產濟用方), Xǔ Shūwēi’s Pǔjì běnshì fāng, the Tāichǎn jīngyàn fāng 胎產經驗方, the Cháoshì zhūbìng yuánhòu lùn, the Wànquán yīngtóng bǎojiàn, Qián Yǐ’s pediatrics, and Zhāng Huàn’s children-care writings.
Abstract
Compiled in the Chúnxī era (1174–1189) while the author was serving as administrator of Nánkāngjūn in Jiāngxī. The work survived in the Sòng-print transmission and was rediscovered as a Sòng edition by Lù Xīnyuán 陸心源 of Guīān 歸安 (the Wànlíguǎn 穰梨館 collector and Sòngběn shūmù compiler). Lù re-cut the wood-blocks in 1887 (Guāngxù 13) — the Hǎiwài huíguī recension preserves this 1887 print.
Structure of the eight juǎn: (1) Rùyuè ānchǎn fǎ 入月安產法 — birth-protection rituals and prayers, the Tǐyuánzǐ jièdì fǎ and Zhúyuè cángyī yóushén fǎ drawn from the Wàitái mìyào; the jìncǎo, jìnshuǐ, and cuīshēng fúfǎ charms drawn from the Shèngjì zǒnglù. (2–3) Drawn entirely from Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn fāng. (4) 李師聖 Lǐ Shīshèng’s Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí with 張世臣 Zhāng Shìchén’s Lěi yòng jīngxiào fāng — preserved here alone. (5) Liú Bǎo’s clinical formulas from Lújiāng. (6) Yú Liú’s Bèichǎn jìyòng fāng and Xǔ Shūwēi’s Běnshì fāng obstetrics — both otherwise lost. (7) The Tāichǎn jīngyàn fāng entire. (8) Mixed pediatric materials from Gě Hóng, Cháo Yuánfāng, Sūn Sīmiǎo, the Wàitái mìyào, the Shènghuì fāng, Wànquán, Qián Yǐ, Zhāng Huàn, et al.
Lù Xīnyuán’s 1887 preface is unequivocal about the work’s stratigraphic value: “Lǐ and Yú’s two compilations survive only through this; the YúZhāng prescriptions are particularly unattested in any earlier bibliographic record. Truly the obstetrical antholgy par excellence, the lodestar of physicians.” Lù’s preface also records that he personally used the work in 1876 and 1884 to save the lives of his wife and daughter-in-law in obstetrical crises — an exceptional bibliographic-personal testimony to the work’s clinical use even in the late nineteenth century.
The author Zhū Duānzhāng (often miswritten 朱瑞章 Zhū Ruìzhāng in the SKQS / hxwd recension) is recorded in the Sòng shǐ — yìwén zhì as the author of four medical works, of which only the Chǎnkē bèiyào survives in Sòng-print transmission. The work was not collected into the Sìkù quánshū and was unknown to Yuán Yuán 阮元 and Qián Zūnwáng 錢遵王 (Lù’s preface). Composition window set to 1180–1190 to bracket the Chúnxī administrative posting.
Translations and research
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 — Sòng obstetrics is the principal subject of Furth chapter 3.
- 馬繼興 Mǎ Jì-xìng, Zhōng-yī wén-xiàn xué 中醫文獻學. Shànghǎi: Shàng-kē-jì, 1990 — the standard reference for the Sòng-edition transmission of medical texts; pp. 217–219 on the Chǎn-kē bèi-yào.
- No standalone English translation located.
Other points of interest
This is one of the very few surviving Sòng-period stand-alone obstetrical works, and the only one to be transmitted in its original Sòng-print form. Its preservation of materials from the otherwise-lost Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí (Lǐ Shīshèng) and Bèichǎn jìyòng fāng (Yú Liú) places it at the centre of any reconstruction of Sòng obstetrical pharmacology.
Links
- 海外回歸中醫善本古籍叢書 (Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū), preserving Lù Xīnyuán’s 1887 Wànlíguǎn re-cutting.
- 衛生家寶產科備要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB