Yīngtóng lèicuì 嬰童類萃
Distilled Categories on Infants and Children by 王大綸 Wáng Dàlún (撰)
About the work
A late-Míng paediatric treatise by 王大綸 Wáng Dàlún (hào Yígāng 怡岡), bearer of a nine-generation family medical lineage. The work was completed and woodblock-printed in Tiānqǐ 2 = 1622 júyuè (chrysanthemum month, ninth lunar month) as one component of Wáng’s three-work cóngshū the Wángshì jiāchāo 王氏家抄 (Family Transcriptions of the Wáng), the others being Dòushā xīnfǎ 痘痧心法 (Smallpox-and-eruption Heart-Method) and an external-medicine prescription appendix. The jicheng.tw recension transmits the paediatric volume Yīngtóng lèicuì alone.
Prefaces
The front-matter carries the author’s own postface (bá 跋) dated Tiānqǐ 2 (1622) júyuè by Yígāng Wáng Dàlún. The postface opens with a vocabulary classification of the age categories — yuènèi wéi qiǎngbǎo 月內為襁褓 (newborn within first month: swaddled), jí qī yuē yīng 及期曰嬰 (first year: yīng), sān suì wéi hái 三歲為孩 (three years: hái), qī tiáo bā chèn 七齠八齔 (seven-and-eight tooth-shedding age), shí suì zhìzǐ 十歲稚子 (ten: zhìzǐ), shíliù suì wéi tóng 十六歲為童 (sixteen: tóng) — and articulates the yǎkē (silent department) problem: the infant cannot speak, even the older child cannot speak with diagnostic precision; “embryos and infants entrust their lives entirely to the physician, and the physician is the substitute mother of all his charges” (yīngtóng dú tīngmìng yú yī, ér yī dú wéi zhòngyīng zhī mǔ 嬰童獨聽命於醫，而醫獨為眾嬰之母). 倉公 Cāng-gōng’s maxim yī zhě yì yě 醫者意也 (the physician is the yì — intuitive understanding) is invoked, with 韓愈 Hán Yù’s Yuándào 原道 metaphor of xīn jìn huǒ chuán 薪盡火傳 (the firewood is consumed but the fire is transmitted) — i.e. medical knowledge transmitted through generations. Wáng then recounts his family’s nine-generation medical lineage, and explains the three-work jiāchāo publication.
Abstract
The Yīngtóng lèicuì is one of several Wànlì / Tiānqǐ late-Míng paediatric compendia (alongside 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng’s Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng yòukē of 1602, KR3ej037, and 秦昌遇 Qín Chāngyù’s Yòukē zhézhōng of c. 1641, KR3ej018). The work organises paediatric disorders into a lèicuì (categorial distillation) format derived from the earlier Wàn Quán family and 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù taxonomic models. The work circulated in late-Míng and early-Qīng Jiāngnán paediatric practice. The 1622 date is fixed by the author’s own postface.
Translations and research
- No substantial English-language scholarship on the Yīngtóng lèicuì located.
- Yīngtóng lèicuì jiàozhù 嬰童類萃校注 — modern punctuated edition (multiple imprints).
- 熊秉真 Xióng Bǐngzhēn (Hsiung Ping-chen), A Tender Voyage. Stanford UP, 2005 — context for late-Míng paediatric publication.