Yòuyòu jíchéng 幼幼集成
A Comprehensive Compendium for Children by 陳復正 Chén Fùzhèng (撰); prefaced by 裘日修 Qiú Rìxiū and 梁玉 Liáng Yù
About the work
A six-juǎn paediatric compendium by the Lǐngnán Daoist-physician 陳復正 Chén Fùzhèng (hào Fēixiá 飛霞), completed in Qiánlóng 15 = 1750 at the Zhǒngxìng cǎotáng 種杏草堂 (Cottage of Planting-Apricots, a name evoking the Three-Kingdoms physician 董奉 Dǒng Fèng) in Suìyáng 澻陽 (modern Yángjiāng 陽江, Guǎngdōng), totalling several hundred thousand characters. It is one of the most original and clinically grounded paediatric treatises of the High Qīng, and is conventionally regarded as the most successful Qīng-period attack on the jīngfēng 驚風 (paediatric convulsion) diagnostic category. The work’s principal nosological innovation is the replacement of jīng 驚 with chù 搐 and the tripartite re-classification wùchù 誤搐 (paediatric Shānghán infectious-disease convulsion mistakenly diagnosed as jīng), lèichù 類搐 (convulsion-resembling, from miscellaneous causes), and fēichù 非搐 (collapse-and-loss-of-essence convulsion). Chén himself was a Daoist liànshī 鍊師 (refinement-master) of the Luófú 羅浮 inner-alchemy tradition who took up medical practice as a jìshì 濟世 (worldly salvation) vocation.
Prefaces
Preface 1 (xù 序) by 裘日修 Qiú Rìxiū (1712–1773), Inner Cabinet Academician concurrently Vice Minister of Rites: cites 司馬遷 Sīmǎ Qiān’s biography of 扁鵲 Biǎn Què (treating women in Hándān, the elderly in Luòyáng, children in Qín) as precedent for medical specialisation, frames Chén Fēixiá’s polemical critique of jīngfēng as morally driven by the cí 慈 (compassion) which 老子 Lǎozǐ identifies as the first of the sānbǎo 三寶, and praises Chén’s Daoist-monastic identity as compatible with — even reinforcing — his medical work. Preface 2 by 梁玉 Liáng Yù of Lóngquán 龍泉, Lǐbù jìnshì wénlínláng hòuxuǎn xiànyǐn (Provincial Graduate of the Ministry of Rites, Wénlín Court Gentleman, Magistrate Designate): praises Chén’s inner-alchemy Daoist training as enabling clinical insight into paediatric xìngmìng 性命 (constitution and life-force), and recounts Chén’s biography — youthful aspiration to immortality, training at Luófú in the lónghǔ 龍虎 (dragon-tiger inner-alchemy) lineage, then itinerant medical practice as bùshì jūnzǐ jiē zhī, fùrén zhāo zhī bùkě zhì (will not accept presents from grandees, refuses summons from the wealthy if they offend his conscience). Author’s small introduction (xiǎoyǐn 小引), dated Qiánlóng 15 gēngwǔ (1750), spring first month: traces the orthodox medical canon from Sùwèn through 伊尹 Yīyǐn, 皇甫謐 Huángfǔ Mì, 秦越人 Qín Yuèrén (Biǎn Què), 張仲景 Zhāng Zhòngjǐng, 王叔和 Wáng Shūhé, and 陶弘景 Táo Hóngjǐng, then through the Míng masters 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn, 張景岳 Zhāng Jǐngyuè, 喻嘉言 Yù Jiāyán (whose works became influential only in the early Kāngxī), and references the new imperial compendium Yīzōng jīnjiàn 醫宗金鑑. He confesses his own constitutional weakness in youth, his transmission of the jīndǐng huǒfú inner-alchemy lineage, and decades of medical itinerancy. Editorial principles (fánlì 凡例) systematically articulate the work’s positions: (1) the jīng / chù terminological reform; (2) the substitution of fǎnzhèng nìcóng 反正逆從 (reverse-normal-counter-current) therapy for jiéduó 劫奪 (forced-seizure purgatives); (3) restoration of the proper Qián Yǐ zàngfǔ doctrine free of later corruptions; (4) incorporation of Shānghán 傷寒 into paediatric practice (the work explicitly draws on 程應旄 Chéng Yìngjīng (Chéng Fèngchú 程鳳雛) here); (5) integration of the variolation and smallpox material from 萬全 Wàn Quán (whose original 1574 Dòuzhěn xīnfǎ edition was destroyed in the late Míng and corrupt in the 1663 Kāngxī 2 reissue, which Chén undertakes to revise); (6) the huǒgōng 火功 (cauterisation) technique as paediatric therapeutic dì yī yàowù 第一要務 (first essential); (7) clarity of language for non-physician household use.
Abstract
The Yòuyòu jíchéng is one of the principal works of the High-Qīng paediatric corpus, on a par with 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng’s Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng yòukē 證治準繩·幼科 (KR3ej037) and 吳謙 Wú Qiān et al.’s Yīzōng jīnjiàn yòukē xīnfǎ 醫宗金鑑·幼科心法要訣 (KR3ej029). Its six juǎn cover: juǎn 1 — prenatal and neonatal care (tāiyùn rǔbǔ 胎孕乳哺); juǎn 2 — the polemical core, including the jīngfēng / chù reform; juǎn 3 — huǒgōng 火功 cauterisation (with diagrams and rhymed mnemonic gē 歌); juǎn 4 — miscellaneous paediatric disorders; juǎn 5 — measles and smallpox (revising Wàn Quán’s Dòuzhěn xīnfǎ with substantial editorial intervention); juǎn 6 — tānghuǒ 湯火 (scalds-and-burns) and chuāngyáng 瘡瘍 (ulcers and sores). The work circulated widely in late-Qīng and is one of the most quoted Qīng-period paediatric texts in Republican-period TCM curricula. Internal anti-purgative polemic, distinctive Daoist huǒgōng (cauterisation) practice, and integration of Shānghán doctrine into paediatric reasoning are its defining methodological contributions.
Translations and research
- 熊秉真 Xióng Bǐngzhēn (Hsiung Ping-chen), A Tender Voyage. Stanford UP, 2005 — discusses Chén Fùzhèng among the principal Qīng paediatric authorities.
- Hinrichs and Barnes, Chinese Medicine and Healing. Harvard UP, 2013 — references Yòuyòu jíchéng in the High-Qīng paediatric tradition.
- Yòuyòu jíchéng jiàozhù 幼幼集成校注, ed. 蔡景峰 Cài Jǐngfēng and others. Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, multiple editions — standard punctuated annotated edition.
- Ang, Sin-loon, et al., “Wǒ guó qīngdài Chén Fùzhèng Yòuyòu jíchéng zhōng huǒgōng zhěnfǎ jí qí xiàndài yìngyòng” (Cauterisation methods in Chén Fùzhèng’s Yòuyòu jíchéng and their modern applications), Zhōngyī yào dàobào 中醫藥導報 (various years).
- No substantial English-language translation located.
Other points of interest
The author’s Daoist-physician identity is one of the more interesting cases in the Qīng medical-biographical literature: Chén Fēixiá’s medical authority derives from his jīndǐng huǒfú (inner-alchemy xìngmìng) training rather than from Confucian classical-medical credentials, and the preface authors (the high-Qīng Confucian official Qiú Rìxiū and the jìnshì Liáng Yù) explicitly thematise the compatibility of Daoist cí 慈 (compassion) with the medical rén 仁 (humaneness) virtue.