Diēsǔn miàofāng 跌損妙方
Marvellous Prescriptions for Fall-Injuries by 異遠真人 Yìyuǎn Zhēnrén (撰) — original compiler; revised and printed by 孫應科 Sūn Yìngkē (zì Yànzhī 彥之, Dàoguāng 16 / 1836).
About the work
A single-juǎn mid-Míng traumatology classic by the Chán monk 異遠真人 Yìyuǎn Zhēnrén, a zhèngdé 正德 — jiājìng 嘉靖 era Buddhist of the Zhènguó Chánsì 鎮國禪寺 in Gāoyóu 高郵 (Jiāngsū). The manuscript was completed in Jiājìng 2 (1523) and circulated for three centuries in manuscript before being printed in Dàoguāng 16 (1836) by the convalescent 孫應科 Sūn Yìngkē (zì Yànzhī 彥之, fl. early-19th century Dàoguāng) — who, having broken his left upper arm in the summer of Dàoguāng 13 (guǐsì 癸巳 = 1833) and made a southward journey in search of treatment, was cured by the methods of this manuscript and arranged its publication out of gratitude. The work is conventionally identified as the foundational text of the Shàolín-tradition (or, more precisely, the late-Míng Buddhist-monastic) school of shāngkē traumatology, characterised by its systematic acupoint-based diagnosis of trauma, its use of 57 named acupoints, and its 152 herbal prescriptions.
Prefaces
The 漢學文典 recension preserves the closing material of the 1836 printed edition: a postscript (shūhòu 書後) by 胡泉 Hú Quán, who provided the funds for the printing, and a sixtieth-birthday poem by 劉寶楠 Liú Bǎonán (1791–1855, the future-celebrated Lúnyǔ zhèngyì author and Yángzhōu School Confucian) addressed to Sūn Yìngkē. Hú Quán’s postscript is dated Dàoguāng 16 (bǐngshēn 丙申 = 1836), the ninth month; Liú Bǎonán’s poem is dated by the same sexagenary year (róuzhào tūntān 柔兆涒灘 = bǐngshēn 丙申 = 1836) and notes that Sūn was sixty suì that year. The compiler’s own original Jiājìng-period preface, if one ever existed, is not preserved.
Abstract
The standard scholarly consensus dates the original composition to Jiājìng 2 (1523), with the author identified as a Buddhist Chán monk of Gāoyóu (Jiāngsū). The composition window adopted here is therefore that single year; the date of the editio princeps of 1836 is recorded under the editor 孫應科 Sūn Yìngkē’s role.
The work opens with a brief Zhìfǎ zǒnglùn 治法總論 (general principles of treatment), emphasising early intervention: “treat early — if you wait half a month, the stasis-blood has already firmed up, the shuǐdào 水道 is blocked, and there is no longer anything you can do.” A list of fatal signs (pulse absent; sinking-fine pulse survivable; shāngēn 山根 nose-root good; scrotum intact with testicles — treatable; testicles drawn into the lower abdomen — fatal; brain-leak with shifted xìnmén fontanelle — fatal; etc.) precedes the formulary.
The substance of the work is a versified Yòngyào gē 用藥歌 (drug-use song): a mnemonic poem prescribing standard guīwěi 歸尾 / shēngdì 生地 / bīngláng 檳榔 / chìsháo 赤芍 as the “four ruler-drugs,” with site-specific add-ons keyed to body region: qiānghuó 羌活, fángfēng 防風, báizhǐ 白芷 for the head; zhǐqiào 枳殼, zhǐshí 枳實 for the chest; jiégěng 桔梗, chāngpú 菖蒲, hòupǔ 厚朴 for the wrist; wūyào 烏藥, língxiān 靈仙 for the back; xùduàn 續斷, wǔjiā 五加, guìzhī 桂枝 for both hands; cháihú 柴胡, dǎncǎo 膽草 for the ribs; dàhuí 大茴, gùzhǐ 故紙, dùzhòng 杜仲 for the lumbar region; niúxī 牛膝, mùguā 木瓜 for one leg, etc. The mnemonic structure became canonical and is paraphrased in nearly every subsequent Qīng shāngkē manual (cf. KR3el005 Shāngkē dàchéng’s “drug-channel routing” section).
The work is the earliest systematic Chinese exposition of xuédào 穴道 (acupoint-based) traumatology — the doctrine that trauma to specific acupoints produces predictable downstream syndromes — and provides the theoretical apparatus that KR3el005, KR3el013, and KR3el016 elaborate.
Translations and research
- No standalone Western-language translation of the complete text located.
- 韋以宗 (ed.), 《少林寺武術傷科秘方集釋》, 北京：人民衛生出版社, 2008 — includes a punctuated, annotated edition of the Diēsǔn miàofāng.
- 林兆耆 (ed.), 《跌損妙方》 校注本, 北京：人民衛生出版社 — modern critical edition.
- The work is the primary source for the standard modern history 韋以宗 《中國骨傷科學辭典》 / 《中國骨傷科學技術史》 (北京：中國醫藥科技出版社).
Other points of interest
The 1836 printing was a private-charity production: 孫應科 Sūn Yìngkē, the broken-armed beneficiary, prepared the revised text; 胡泉 Hú Quán paid for the woodblocks; 劉寶楠 Liú Bǎonán (the eminent Yángzhōu School Confucian scholar) provided a sixtieth-birthday celebratory poem. This three-way friendship-circle production-mode is one of the better-documented late-Qīng cases of literati-medicine charitable publishing.