Jīngyàn máke 經驗麻科
Experiential Materials of the Measles Specialty by an anonymous late-imperial physician
About the work
A single-juǎn anonymous measles-specialty (mázhěn 麻疹 / cùzhèng 瘄症) treatise preserved in the hxwd corpus, attributable on internal evidence to the late Míng — Qīng period. The work bears no preface, no author attribution, and no dating colophon; the catalog meta entry assigns no author and no dynasty (the hxwd catalog convention for unattributed Qīng-period medical compilations).
Prefaces
No preface or postface in the source file.
Abstract
The text is structured as a long, continuously numbered sequence of clinical sections, opening with Cùzǐ zǒnglùn 瘄子總論 (General Discourse on cù / Measles, §1) and proceeding through 113+ numbered topics covering every phase of measles management. The opening zǒnglùn lays out the regional Jiāngzhè cù nosology: the classic prodrome (késòu pēntì, bíliú qīngtì, yǎnbāo wēizhǒng wēichì, lèi yù wāngwāng 咳嗽噴嚏，鼻流清涕，眼胞微腫微赤，淚欲汪汪), the diagnostic distinction between mild (transient eruption, easy resolution) and severe (biànshēn péngzhàng, yǎnchì fēngbì, zhuàngrè wú hàn 遍身膨脹，眼赤封閉，壯熱無汗), and the principal therapeutic axiom: sān rì yí shēng, sì rì yí jiàng 三日宜升，四日宜降 (“on the third day promote elevation; on the fourth day promote downward draining”). Use of Máhuáng tāng 麻黃湯 for unresponsive eruption, Qīnglóng tāng 青龍湯 / Shuāngjiě tāng 雙解湯 for dense purplish-dry presentations, and Shēng shígāo 生石膏 in large doses (up to two liǎng) for sustained post-eruption wèihuǒ 胃火 are presented as the work’s signature interventions.
Other sections cover: yàoxìng 藥性 (materia medica with measles-specific notes — fángfēng 防風, jīngjiè 荊芥, shēngmá 升麻, gāngé 乾葛, máhuáng 麻黃, guìzhī 桂枝, sūyè 蘇葉, qīngpí 青皮, chénpí 陳皮, jiégěng 桔梗, qiánhú 前胡, fúhuā 復花, etc.); ascending and descending decoctions; xiǎobiàn chìsè 小便赤澀 and dàbiàn mìjié 大便秘結; the wide range of measles-associated complications — xièxiè 泄瀉, ǒutù 嘔吐, sānxiāo 三消, jīngchù 驚搐, shīxuè 失血, guībèi 龜背 / bíshàn 鼻扇 as fatal signs, and so on — terminating in clinical-prognostic sections including yuèshì 月事 (menses during measles), wǔzàng shòudú biàn 五臟受毒辨 (organ-system classification of measles complications), and kǒushé shēng chuāng 口舌生瘡 (oral lesions).
The work is methodologically representative of late-Qīng mákē 麻科 manuscripts that circulated regionally without printed editions: heavy on practical clinical rules, sparse on textual citation. The lack of dynasty tag in the hxwd meta is consistent with this manuscript profile. The composition window 1600–1900 reflects the broad late-imperial range that the internal evidence allows; the máshā / cù terminology and the heavy emphasis on cooling-purging Shígāo dosing post-eruption suggest the late Qīng is most likely.
Translations and research
- No substantial scholarship on this anonymous compilation located.
- Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge, 2011 — for the late-Qīng measles-specialty regional context.
Other points of interest
The text exemplifies the anonymous-manual stratum of late-imperial Chinese paediatric medicine: locally circulated practical handbooks that lack the literary apparatus (preface, dating colophon, author lineage) of the more prestigious printed paediatric treatises but which nonetheless transmit a coherent regional clinical doctrine. The 113-section structure with stepwise numbered headings (第一, 第二, …) is a distinctive manual-style organization, contrasting with the literary lùn 論 / zhèng 證 / fāng 方 partition of the more polished printed works.