Jìshēng chǎnbǎo 濟生產寶
Saving-Life Obstetrical Treasury edited by 徐明善 Xú Míngshàn (1250–?), original author unknown
About the work
A one-juǎn obstetrical formulary of Sòng origin, transmitted in a 1535 (Jiājìng 14) print prepared by 雷鳴震 Léi Mínzhèn (Léishì zǐ 雷氏子) of Nándū 南都 (Nánjīng), from a Sòng-period edition of the text he had acquired by chance. The original author is anonymous; the work is associated by tradition with the early-Sòng medical figure 徐明善 Xú Míngshàn as its editor or jiàozhèng 校正 (corrector). 王子沖 Wáng Zǐchōng of Zhèjiāng (jìnshì) prefaces the 1535 print in Jiājìng yǐwèi 4th month.
Abstract
The catalog meta records: 原著者 不詳，徐明善 校正 — “original author unknown, edited and corrected by Xú Míngshàn.” Xú Míngshàn (1250–?) — see 徐明善 — was a Yuán-period educational official, not primarily a physician; his role here is editorial (correction of an earlier manuscript), not authorial. The work itself is therefore not by Xú; rather, Xú is the corrector who established the text in some recension that circulated before Léi Mínzhèn’s 1535 print.
The work is a compact obstetrical formulary, focused on Sòng-period prescription pharmacology — Sìwù tāng family, Āntāi yǐn and cuīshēng (labour-induction) formulas. Its transmission history is unusual: it survived in only a single Sòng-edition manuscript known to 王子沖 Wáng Zǐchōng, who praised its preservation as “not only of benefit to pregnant women, but also greatly of help to medical men.”
Dating: the work’s underlying composition is Sòng, but its received recension is the 1535 print. Per the project rule on layered works, the work could plausibly be dated either to the Sòng (composition window: 1180–1279) or to the 1535 Léi Mínzhèn print. We adopt the broader window 1180–1535 — terminus post quem from the work’s apparent Sòng-origin (and Xú Míngshàn’s late-13th-century editorial activity), terminus ante quem the 1535 first surviving print. The dynasty marker is 宋 per the catalog meta.
The 1535 雷鳴震 Léi Mínzhèn print is presumably the basis of the Hǎiwài huíguī recension. Detailed philological work on the textual transmission is yet to be done.
Translations and research
- No substantial secondary literature located.
- No standalone English translation located.
Links
- 海外回歸中醫善本古籍叢書 (Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū).
- 濟生產寶 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB