Sǎn lùn yì 產論翼
Wings of the Treatise on Childbirth (Japanese: Sanron-yoku) by 賀川玄迪 (Kagawa Genteki / Okamoto Kishi 岡本起, 1739–1779)
About the work
The principal continuation and supplement to Kagawa Gen’etsu’s (賀川玄悅) Sǎn lùn (KR3ei062, 1765), compiled and published in 1775 (Anei 4) by his adopted son-in-law and disciple 賀川玄迪 Kagawa Genteki (= Okamoto Kishi 岡本起). Title literally “wings” — i.e. supplementing and completing the Sǎn lùn, providing the missing detail on the Kagawa-school obstetrical manual-manipulation techniques that the older work had treated in summary form only.
Abstract
The work expands on the original Sǎn lùn in three directions:
- Twenty new clinical-technique entries systematically describing the Kagawa-school obstetrical interventions: 按腹 (abdominal palpation), 辨胎 (fetal-status diagnostic palpation), 整胎 (intrauterine repositioning of the fetus), 救癇 (eclampsia management with the Cānlián tāng and 第二和劑湯 prescriptions), 探宮 (intrapartum cervical examination), 導水 (decompression of obstructed labour), 坐草 (the parturition manoeuvres), 斷臍 (umbilical-cord cauterisation protocols), 禁暈 (anti-syncope manoeuvre), 抒倒 (manual delivery of the dead-presenting fetus), 整橫 (transverse-presentation correction), 拔坐救坐 (the breech-extraction technique), 舉孿 (twin-extraction technique), 易蓐 (post-partum repositioning), 遏崩 (control of post-partum haemorrhage), 泄閉 (relief of intrapartum urinary retention), 納腸 (reduction of post-partum prolapsed intestine), 斂宮 (reduction of post-partum uterine prolapse), 復肛 (anal prolapse reduction), 救痙 (eclamptic-seizure management).
- The famous death-fetus identification chapter (sǐtāi hòu fǎ 死胎候法) — a systematic compilation of the 20+ clinical signs by which the Kagawa school identified intrauterine fetal death, including the prophetic-pulse signs, the maternal abdominal findings, the fetal-presentation-on-palpation findings, and the discharge-and-odour signs. This chapter is one of the most-prescient empirical-clinical compilations of early-modern Japanese obstetrics.
- A 32-figure illustration set of fetal presentations (preserved as the Huáiyùn tú 懷孕圖 appendix), and a 28-case clinical-history appendix (the Fùlù zhìyàn èrshíbā tiáo 附錄治驗二十八條).
Composition window: precisely 1775. The work survives in multiple Japanese-print recensions; the Hǎiwài huíguī recension is one of the late-Qīng Chinese repatriations.
The work contains an explicit critique of the contemporary Chinese-obstetrical practice descending from the Dáshēng biān (KR3ei055): “recently I read the Qīng-author’s Dáshēng biān; the abdominal-binding cloths it advocates are essentially the same as the rectifying-bands (zhèndài) used in our country, and they cause grave harm to the pregnancy… I lament that no one has been able to cross the sea to tell those people of their error.” This is one of the few documented points of explicit Sino-Japanese obstetrical-doctrinal dispute in the early-modern period.
The catalog meta gives Kagawa Genteki and no dynasty marker; the actual context is Edo-period Japan.
Translations and research
- Susan L. Burns, “Body and Birth in Tokugawa Japan” (1994).
- 大塚敬節 Ōtsuka Keisetsu, ed., Kagawa Gen’etsu / Genteki: Sanron, Sanron-yoku. Tōkyō: Meicho shuppan, 1981 — annotated modern edition.
- No standalone English translation located.
Links
- 海外回歸中醫善本古籍叢書 (Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū).
- 產論翼 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB