Yòuyòu xīnshū 幼幼新書
New Book of Paediatric Care by 劉昉 Liú Fǎng (撰), completed by 樓璹 Lóu Shú (續成); prefaced by 石才孺 Shí Cáirú
About the work
A forty-juǎn paediatric encyclopaedia compiled in the Shàoxīng era under the direction of 劉昉 Liú Fǎng (1100–1150, zì Fāngmíng 方明, jìnshì 1124) of Jiēyáng 揭陽 during his tenure as Tánzhōu shuài 潭州帥 (military commissioner of Tánzhōu, modern Chángshā). It is the most comprehensive Sòng-period paediatric work and the principal Chinese-medical paediatric reference of the twelfth century — comparable in scale and authority to its contemporary general-medical work the Tàipíng shènghuì fāng 太平聖惠方 for the paediatric corpus. The work was incomplete at Liú Fǎng’s death in the autumn of 1150 — thirty-eight of the forty juǎn had been finished — and was completed by his successor as Tánzhōu commander 樓璹 Lóu Shú (the author of the famous Gēngzhī tú 耕織圖) in the eleventh month of 1150. Lóu combined the projected juǎn 39 and 40 into a single concluding juǎn and prefixed a newly compiled qiúzǐ fānglùn 求子方論 (treatises on conception) as a new juǎn 1, restoring the total to forty.
Prefaces
The received text carries two postfaces. Postface 1 (hòuxù 後序) by 石才孺 Shí Cáirú, dated Shàoxīng shàngzhāng dūnzāng suì shíyī yuè zāishēngmíng 紹興上章敦牂歲十一月哉生明 = 1150 (the cyclic terms shàngzhāng = gēng and dūnzāng = wǔ yield gēngwǔ; zāishēngmíng = 3rd of the lunar month). Shí frames the work in classical Confucian terms — jīngjí, wúdào zhī quántí; fānglùn, yīdào zhī quántí 經籍，吾道之筌蹄；方論，醫道之筌蹄 (canonical books are the trap-fish of our Way; prescription-treatises are the trap-fish of medicine) — and recounts the work’s circumstances: Liú Fǎng commissioned the compilation while at Tánzhōu, completed thirty-eight juǎn of the planned forty, then died of illness; his successor Lóu Shú combined the remaining two juǎn into one, prefixed a qiúzǐ (conception) treatise as the new juǎn 1, and completed the work within a month. Shí closes with the moral allegory of 宋庠 Sòng Jǔgōng (Sòng Xiáng) who built a bamboo bridge for ants displaced by flood and was rewarded with longevity by Heaven: by analogy, Liú’s Yòuyòu xīnshū will lì jí tiānxià hòushì 利及天下後世 (its benefit will reach all under Heaven and posterity), and Heaven will reward him with fúlù 茀祿. Postface 2 (跋) by 樓璹 Lóu Shú himself, dated the sixteenth of the eleventh month (1150): explains that on Liú Fǎng’s death he as jīngHúnán lù zhuǎnyùn pànguān quán Tánzhōu jūnzhōu shì 荊湖南路轉運判官權潭州軍州事 (acting prefect of Tánzhōu) inquired what unfinished projects Liú had left, learned of the Yòuyòu xīnshū, examined it, found it bāzhī tōnghuán, bǎihuò jùzài 八之通寰，百貨具在 (an open-tray of treasures, all goods displayed), and ordered the woodcutters to complete it.
Abstract
The Yòuyòu xīnshū is the principal Sòng-period paediatric encyclopaedia, and the largest comprehensive Chinese paediatric work prior to the Míng-Qīng era. Its forty juǎn are organised by disease category, integrating: (1) the Nèijīng 內經 / Nánjīng 難經 doctrinal foundations; (2) the Qiānjīn fāng 千金方 / Zhǒuhòu fāng 肘後方 / Wàitái mìyào 外台秘要 prescription traditions; (3) 錢乙 Qián Yǐ’s zàngfǔ paediatric theory (the Xiǎoér yàozhèng zhíjué 小兒藥證直訣, KR3ej020); (4) the Tàipíng shènghuì fāng 太平聖惠方 imperial corpus; and (5) regional paediatric jiāfāng 家方 (household formularies) circulating in twelfth-century Jiāngnán. Each disease category is treated as a mén 門 with sub-divisions: classical-source citations (lùn 論), clinical-symptom descriptions, and successive prescriptions (fāng 方), often with quoted attributions to the source-text. The work’s encyclopaedic cǎijí 採輯 (compilation-from-sources) method preserves substantial fragments of paediatric texts now otherwise lost, and is a principal source for the reconstruction of pre-Sòng Chinese paediatric prescription literature. The 1150 dating is exact, fixed by both the Shí Cáirú preface and the Lóu Shú postface.
Translations and research
- Hinrichs and Barnes, Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Harvard UP, 2013 — discusses the work in the Sòng paediatric context.
- 熊秉真 Xióng Bǐngzhēn (Hsiung Ping-chen), A Tender Voyage. Stanford UP, 2005 — references Yòuyòu xīnshū repeatedly as a source for Sòng paediatric doctrine.
- 田代華 Tián Dàihuá and 俞詠敏 Yú Yǒngmǐn et al., Yòuyòu xīnshū jiàozhù 幼幼新書校注. Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, multiple editions — standard modern critical edition.
- Catherine Despeux, “L’ordonnance médicale en Chine ancienne” — context for the Sòng prescription tradition; standard reference.
- No substantial English translation of the work itself located.
Other points of interest
The composition history — the senior commissioner dies leaving a major encyclopaedic project unfinished, the successor commissioner completes it within a month — is a recurring topos of Sòng-Yuán institutional historiography (compare the completion of the Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 and Cèfǔ yuánguī 冊府元龜 imperial encyclopaedias). Lóu Shú’s role here as completer is significant: he is best known as the compiler of the Gēngzhī tú 耕織圖 (Pictures of Tilling and Weaving), an icon of Sòng-period imperially-sponsored visual didacticism. His command of Yòuyòu xīnshū into completion is thus another instance of his characteristic blend of administrative diligence with cultural-encyclopaedic ambition.