Yīngtóng bǎiwèn 嬰童百問
One Hundred Questions on Infants and Children attributed to 魯伯嗣 Lǔ Bósì (撰); 1506 edition prefaced by 王云鳳 Wáng Yúnfèng and 蕭謙 Xiāo Qiān; later prefaced by 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng
About the work
A ten-juǎn paediatric question-and-answer compendium, structured (as its title indicates) as one hundred numbered questions covering the principal disorders of infant and childhood medicine, each wèn 問 followed by a discussion of yuán 源 (cause), zhèng 證 (symptoms), and liáo 療 (treatment). Conventionally attributed to 魯伯嗣 Lǔ Bósì (also written 魯伯嗣學), an early-Míng paediatric compiler of unknown biography. The work survived in manuscript until 郭定靜 Guō Dìngjìng (jìnshì of Gāopíng 高平, magistrate at Pīzhōu 邳州) discovered a copy in his Pīzhōu archives; after Guō’s death his son 郭坤 Guō Kūn, then magistrate of Lántián 蘭田, had it cut in blocks and printed (1506, Zhèngdé yuánnián 丙寅) with prefaces by Wáng Yúnfèng and Xiāo Qiān. A subsequent edition was reissued by 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng (Yǔtài 宇泰) of Jīntán 金壇, whose preface is preserved in the front matter.
Prefaces
The 1506 Zhèngdé edition carries three prefaces. Wáng Yúnfèng 王云鳳 (xùyī, dated 正德元年丙寅夏六月十八日 = 1506.07): frames paediatric medicine as analogous to statecraft — “the yuánqì 元氣 of empire is gāngjì 綱紀 (the constitutional order); the yuánqì of the child is what the paediatric physician guards.” Recounts the discovery of the manuscript at Pī by Guō Dìngjìng and the publication by Guō Kūn. Xiāo Qiān 蕭謙 (zì Zǐyù 子豫, of Cháng’ān): expresses cautious doubt on the attribution — “nài wú zuǒ yàn, jìng wèi zhī qí shì fǒu 奈無左驗，竟未知其是否” (since there is no independent evidence, we cannot finally say whether [the attribution to Lǔ Bósì] is correct) — and notes that the work’s reliance on Géshì Zhǒuhòu fāng 葛氏肘後方, Qiānjīn fāng 千金方, Rénzhāi zhízhǐ fāng 仁齋直指方, and Chénshì fāng 陳氏方 is consistent either with 錢乙 Qián Yǐ’s lost Yīngrú lùn bǎipiān 嬰孺論百篇 or with a later compiler’s editorial work. Wáng Kěntáng 王肯堂: praises the work as exhausting the bǎoyīng zhī dào 保嬰之道 (way of protecting infants) with its hundred-wèn structure, each item xùn zhī yǐ yuán, biǎo zhī yǐ zhèng, duì zhī yǐ liáo 浚之以源，表之以證，對之以療 — pursuing each disorder to its source, displaying its symptoms, and supplying its therapy. He famously closes “shìqīn zhě bùkě bù zhī yī; àizǐ zhě bùkě wú shì shū 事親者不可不知醫；愛子者不可無是書” — those who serve parents must know medicine; those who love children cannot do without this book.
Abstract
The Yīngtóng bǎiwèn is one of the most successful Míng-period paediatric compendia, important less for theoretical innovation than for the clarity of its hundred-question format and the breadth of its compiled materials, which integrate Sòng-period Qiánshì 錢氏 zàngfǔ theory with Táng-Sòng prescription literature (Zhǒuhòu fāng, Qiānjīn fāng, Rénzhāi zhízhǐ fāng, Chénshì xiǎoér dòuzhěn fānglùn 陳氏小兒痘疹方論). The textual date bracket is set by the conservative bound on Lǔ Bósì (post-1368, the Míng foundation) and by the 1506 publication date of the Guō Kūn edition (the firm terminus ante quem for the received text). Modern editions exist; the work was widely reprinted through the Qīng. The text is one of the principal sources for Míng-period paediatric xuéyuàn 學院 curricula.
Translations and research
- 熊秉真 Xióng Bǐngzhēn (Hsiung Ping-chen), A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China. Stanford UP, 2005 — situates Yīngtóng bǎiwèn in the Míng paediatric question-and-answer tradition.
- Hinrichs and Barnes (eds.), Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Harvard UP, 2013 — context for Míng paediatric textual production.
- Yīngtóng bǎiwèn jiàozhù 嬰童百問校注, various modern editions (e.g. Zhōngyī gǔjí chūbǎnshè).
- No substantial English-language monograph translation located.
Other points of interest
Xiāo Qiān’s preface is methodologically remarkable for its explicit doubt of the conventional attribution and its careful philological reasoning from internal textual evidence — a notable Confucian-philological intervention in a paediatric publication. The work’s transmission story (manuscript-found-at-a-county-yamen, published-by-the-magistrate’s-son) is itself a topos of the late-Míng medical-publishing trade.