Yùyīng tíyàoshuō 鬻嬰提要說
Essential Discussions on the Nurture of Infants by 張筱衫 Zhāng Xiǎoshān (撰); postfaced by 孫鳳翔 Sūn Fèngxiáng
About the work
A single-juǎn late-Qīng paediatric-hygiene treatise by 張筱衫 Zhāng Xiǎoshān (míng Zhènjūn 振鋆, originally Lǐquán 醴泉; hào Tìlìzǐ 惕厲子) of Bǎoyīng 寶應 (Jiāngsū), completed at the Ānyí Liángshì cǎotáng 安宜梁氏草堂 in Guāngxù 15 = 1889 spring third month. The work is the companion-volume to Zhāng’s earlier Lízhèng ànmó yàoshù 釐正按摩要術 (KR3ee054, 1888) — Ànmó yàoshù treating manifested disease (zhì yǐjí 治已疾), the Yùyīng tíyàoshuō treating future-disease prevention (zhì wèijí 治未疾). Zhāng frames the work in the Sùwèn maxim shèngrén bù zhì yǐbìng, zhì wèibìng 聖人不治已病，治未病 (the sage does not treat manifest disease, but prevents disease) and assembles the principal Chinese-medical discourse on the yùyīng 鬻嬰 (lit. sell/raise infants — here “infant nurture”) theme from the Qiānjīn fāng, Cháoshì bìngyuán of 巢元方 Cháo Yuánfāng, Lúxìn jīng 顱顖經, the Wàn-family Yùyīng jiāmì, 張景岳 Zhāng Jǐngyuè, 朱丹溪 Zhū Dānxī, 孫兆 Sūn Zhào, 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo, 陳復正 Chén Fēixiá, 夏鼎 Xià Yǔzhù (Xià Dǐng), 周於藩 Zhōu Yúfān, and others — about a hundred quoted authorities in all, threaded into a continuous discourse on yīmǔ 乳母 (wet-nurse selection and hygiene), bǔrǔ 哺乳 (breastfeeding), yīshí 衣食 (clothing and diet), and the prevention of paediatric disorders.
Prefaces
Author’s self-preface, dated Guāngxù 15 jǐchǒu 1889 spring third month, signed Bǎoyīng Tìlìzǐ Zhāng Zhènjūn yuánmíng Lǐquán Xiǎoshān fǔ 寶應惕厲子張振鋆原名醴泉筱衫甫 at the Ānyí Liángshì cǎotáng 安宜梁氏草堂 in Bǎoyīng. The preface opens with 蘇軾 Sū Shì’s saying wéi yǒu zǐ wéi bùxiǔ 惟有子為不朽 (only sons make one immortal) — the parental love of the yīngér (infant) — and laments contemporary infant mortality from misregulated feeding, ill-judged temperature, and ignorance of paediatric jìnjì 禁忌. He frames the work as the zhì wèijí (preventive) companion to his Ànmó yàoshù (curative) work. Postface (bá 跋) by 孫鳳翔 Sūn Fèngxiáng (Dúshān fǔ 犢山甫) of Jiāngdū 江都, dated 光緒己丑夏仲 = 1889 mid-summer: invokes the 扁鵲 Biǎn Què anecdote and the Sùwèn maxim of treating wèibìng (incipient/future disease) to praise the work.
Abstract
The Yùyīng tíyàoshuō is a richly compiled paediatric-hygiene anthology rather than a self-composed treatise: virtually every passage is a quoted excerpt from a named source, threaded together by Zhāng’s editorial sequencing. Topics treated in sequence: (1) rǔmǔ xíngsè 乳母形色 (selection of wet-nurses — fitness criteria following the Qiānjīn fāng, Wàn Mìzhāi, Bǎoyīng yìzhī lù 保嬰易知錄, Bǎojiàn 寶鑑); (2) rǔmǔ jīngjì 乳母經忌 (wet-nurse contraindications during emotional disturbance, sexual activity, post-vomiting/diarrhoea); (3) bǔrǔ 哺乳 (the procedure of breastfeeding, including the famous Sūn Sīmiǎo prohibition of side-lying nursing for risk of suffocation); (4) infant zhōushēn jīnjì 周身禁忌 (general dietary, environmental, and behavioural contraindications); (5) infant jīngshén 精神 nurture; (6) systematic discussion of the appropriate developmental milestones (sitting at 180 days = kāogǔ 尻骨 completion, crawling at 240 days = zhǎnggǔ 掌骨, standing at 300 days = bìngǔ 臏骨, walking at one year = xīgǔ 膝骨); (7) emergency household techniques (tānghuǒ burns by wet paper, luó 螺-stuck-in-throat by duck-tongue scraping, etc.); (8) standard household nursery practices (sun-exposure of bedding to avoid fēixīng èniǎo 飛星惡鳥 evil influences — a marker of folk-medical synthesis in Zhāng’s compilation). Particularly notable is the work’s preservation of the Yīxué yuánliú 醫學源流 (i.e. 徐靈胎 Xú Língtāi’s Yīxué yuánliú lùn 醫學源流論) passage on the proper paediatric feeding during illness — a key Qīng-period authority on paediatric dietary management.
Translations and research
- 熊秉真 Xióng Bǐngzhēn (Hsiung Ping-chen), A Tender Voyage. Stanford UP, 2005 — context for late-Qīng paediatric-hygiene literature.
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women. Berkeley: UC Press, 2010 — context for the Yùyīng (infant nurture) literary genre.
- Lízhèng ànmó yàoshù jí Yùyīng tíyàoshuō jiàoshì 釐正按摩要術及鬻嬰提要說校釋 — modern critical edition of Zhāng’s two paired works (multiple imprints).
- No substantial English translation located.
Other points of interest
The work’s relentlessly quotation-based structure — passage-after-passage of named-source citation, with very little of Zhāng’s own voice — makes it functionally an annotated paediatric-hygiene bibliography, useful in the modern period principally as a means of locating the principal Qīng-period authorities on each yùyīng topic. The work was widely reprinted in the late Qīng and early Republic.