Chǎnbǎo 產寶
Obstetrical Treasury by 倪枝維 (Ní Zhīwéi, zì Pèiyù 佩玉, hào Fèngbīn 鳳賓; fl. Yōngzhèng era)
About the work
A concise one-juǎn post-partum manual completed in 1728 (Yōngzhèng 6) — a focused clinical compendium organised entirely around the post-partum complications, with Shēnghuà tāng 生化湯 as its master formula. The work’s theoretical signature, stated in Xǔ Lián’s 1842 preface, is the proposition that “to regulate blood one must first regulate qi” (治血必先理氣) — a deliberate rejection of the contemporary tendency to use mòyào / sānléng / ézhú blood-breaking drugs in post-partum, which Xǔ Lián blames for the death of his own first wife in 1813.
Abstract
Ní Zhīwéi completed the work in 1728 but it was never printed in his lifetime — the manuscript circulated only privately. According to the preface of 許槤 Xǔ Lián of Hǎichāng (a Qīng official and bibliophile), the manuscript was given to him by his friend 趙魏 Zhào Wèi and lay in his box for some twenty-five years before he prepared the first wood-block edition in 1842 (Dàoguāng rényín) at his Píngdùzhōu official residence. 黃祖經 Huáng Zǔjīng of Shíyáng prepared a re-cut at his family school in 1871 (Tóngzhì xīnwèi) after his father (Huáng’s father, a guānglù official, had also intended to print). 黃子畬 Huáng Zǐyú prepared a stone-lithograph edition in 1906 (Guāngxù bǐngwǔ) at the Quánshíshānfáng 拳石山房, with prefaces by 高尚縉 Gāo Shàngjìn and the editor’s family notes describing several first-hand clinical successes from the use of the book’s prescriptions.
The dating of 1728 follows the explicit testimony of Xǔ Lián’s preface: “Ní Yōngzhèng liù nián chéng shì shū” — Yōngzhèng 6 = 1728. The work’s theoretical apparatus is anchored in three master formulae of Ní’s design or popularisation: (i) Shēnghuà tāng 生化湯 (川芎 12 fēn, 當歸 5 qián, 炮黑 乾薑 5 fēn, 炙 甘草 3 fēn, 桃仁 11 粒) for zhènghuà (the “transforming-and-generating” axis of post-partum blood-regulation); (ii) Shēnghuà duómìng tāng 生化奪命湯 for blood-collapse fainting; (iii) Yǎngzhèng tōngyōu tāng 養正通幽湯 for post-partum constipation. The book’s distinctive contraindications — never use máhuáng, dàhuáng, chéngqì tāng, zhīfù, bǎicǎoshuāng, zōnghuī, jiàobǎo, huángbǎi, huánglián, zhīzǐ, huángbǎo in post-partum — became canonical late-Qīng obstetrical orthodoxy.
The work is one of the most-clinically-influential single-juǎn obstetrical manuals of the Qīng. The 1906 prefaces record half a dozen documented case-successes using its protocols.
Translations and research
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- No standalone English translation located. The work is, however, the conceptual basis of the post-partum chapter of Bensky-Barolet, Chinese Herbal Medicine: Formulas & Strategies, Eastland Press.
Links
- 海外回歸中醫善本古籍叢書 (Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū), preserving the 1906 Huáng Zǐyú stone-lithograph recension with the 1842 and 1871 prefaces.
- 產寶 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB