Yòukē jīngchù mén 幼科驚搐門
The Convulsion Department of Paediatrics by 樓擁千 Lóu Yōngqiān (撰); preface by 王紹典 Wáng Shàodiǎn (1791)
About the work
A mid-Qīng paediatric specialty monograph on jīngchù 驚搐 (convulsive febrile seizures, including the classical jíjīngfēng 急驚風 and mànjīngfēng 慢驚風 categories) by Lóu Yōngqiān 樓擁千, a descendant of the famous Míng physician Lóu Yīng 樓英 (1320–1389/1400) who had authored the comprehensive medical encyclopedia Yīxué gāngmù 《醫學綱目》 (1565 first printed edition).
The preface, by Wáng Shàodiǎn 王紹典, is dated Qiánlóng xīnhài 乾隆辛亥, with the introductory anecdote gēngxū dōng 庚戌冬 placing the preface composition in late autumn 1790 — early summer 1791. The publication is therefore firmly fixed to 1791 (Qiánlóng 56).
Prefaces
Wáng Shàodiǎn’s preface frames the work biographically. Lóu Yōngqiān is described as a xíngzhì wényú yán 行直為文於言 (forthright literary character) who, finding his constitution weak (xián bǐngzhì bó 嫌稟質薄), devoted himself in his twenties to QíHuáng 岐黃 medicine. His ancestral Yīxué gāngmù (the Lóu Yīng encyclopedia) was his foundational text; he supplemented it with extensive reading and developed an integrated reputation across multiple medical specialties (nán fù dà xiǎo zhū kē 男婦大小諸科). Wáng notes that Lóu’s reputation drew up to 100 patients daily; he served them without seeking fees and supplied medicines free of charge to those in poverty. The preface’s central narrative: Wáng and Lóu had been long-separated by social network, until winter 1790 brought them together at Hangzhou (Wǔlín 武林). During an evening of conversation, Lóu produced the manuscript of Yòukē jīngchù mén and proposed publication; Wáng accepted with the wry encouragement xiān-sheng zì cǐ bùsǐ yǐ 先生自此不死矣 (“you, sir, will from this moment forward never die” — through the immortality of the printed work).
Abstract
The work organises convulsive seizure disorders of childhood by a sophisticated diagnostic-classificatory schema. The opening Jīngchù zǒngkuò 驚搐總括 (General Compendium of Convulsions) introduces four governing oppositions:
- zhēn 真 vs jiǎ 假 — genuine (life-threatening, often fatal within 2–3 episodes) vs spurious (more frequent but less serious, due to externally-induced rather than internally-derived disturbance).
- yīn 陰 vs yáng 陽 — convulsions due to Liver-wood / Heart-fire (yáng, “acute” jíjīngfēng) vs convulsions due to Spleen-earth (yīn, “chronic” mànjīngfēng).
- shùn 順 vs nì 逆 — favorable vs unfavorable.
Following Qián Yǐ 錢乙’s yīngyīng approach, the work then maps seizures by their time of onset to the èrshísì shí 二十四時 (24-period) clock-and-organ correspondence: yínmǎochén (3-9 am, Wood time) → Liver-excess seizures; sìwǔwèi (9 am-3 pm, Fire time) → Heart-excess; shēnyǒuxū (3-9 pm, Metal time) → Lung-excess (with Liver subduing Spleen as the underlying mechanism); hàizǐchǒu (9 pm-3 am, Water time) → Kidney-related, with Spleen-Kidney both depleted following major illness. Each clock-position case receives a specific prescription: Dìhuángwán 地黃丸 for water-supplementation, Xièqīngwán 瀉青丸 for liver-purgation, Dǎochìsǎn 導赤散 + Liángjīngwán 涼驚丸 / Mùtōngsǎn 木通散 for heart-purgation, Qiánshì yìgōng sǎn 錢氏異功散 for spleen-supplementation, Xiǎo Ājiāo sǎn 小阿膠散 for Lung treatment.
The work is firmly within the Hángzhōu paediatric tradition and inherits Qián Yǐ’s clock-correspondence diagnostic framework while specialising it for the jīngchù / convulsion subject area. It is one of the more clinically refined late-Qīng paediatric jīngfēng monographs.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language scholarship on the Yòukē jīngchù mén located.
- For Lóu Yīng (the author’s ancestor) and the Yī-xué gāng-mù tradition: see Paul Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (UC Press, 1985), passim.
Other points of interest
The work’s positioning as a single-focus monograph on convulsive seizure disorders distinguishes it from the more general Yòukē paediatric encyclopedias of the late Qīng. Lóu Yōngqiān’s descent from Lóu Yīng (Míng) — explicitly invoked in the preface — exemplifies the late-Qīng yīshì 醫世 (medical-lineage) tradition of generational specialisation. The preface’s date (1791) and the catalog’s dynasty: 清 are correct.
The pairing of clock-time-of-seizure-onset with five-organ pathology is a refinement of the Qián Yǐ paediatric tradition that anticipates modern paediatric circadian-pattern recognition.