Shěnshì yáohán 審視瑤函
A Precious Casket of Examined-Vision (Ophthalmology) also known as Yǎnkē dàquán 眼科大全 (“Complete Ophthalmology”), by 傅仁宇 Fù Rényǔ (zì Yǔnkē 允科, fl. late Wànlì – Chóngzhēn), compiled (biānzhā 編扎) by him and edited / sequenced (biāncì 編次) by his son 傅國棟 Fù Guódòng (zì Wéifān 維藩, hào Fùhuìzǐ 復慧子).
About the work
The major late-Míng ophthalmological compendium, in six juan plus a prefatory juǎnshǒu 卷首, completed in 1644 and printed at the Jìshìtáng 濟世堂 of Mòlíng 秣陵 (Nánjīng 南京). The juǎnshǒu presents foundational matter: 凡例 (editorial principles), 前賢醫案 (case histories from earlier masters), 五輪八廓 anatomical diagrams (wǔlún 五輪 and bākuò 八廓 of the eye), the Dònggōng liùzì yánshòu jué 動功六字延壽訣 daoyin-respiration formula, and the Wǔyùnzhītú 五運之圖. Juan 1 collects fifteen theoretical essays on the basics of ophthalmology; juan 2 is a redaction of KR3em001 Yuánjī qǐwēi 原機啟微 by 倪維德 Ní Wéidé (with much of Ní’s text and prescriptions reproduced verbatim) plus three additional essays; juan 3 to juan 6 catalogue 108 named eye-disorders (bǎilíngbā zhèng 一百八症), with diagnostic discussions, indicated decoctions, and detailed protocols for the eye-surgical techniques jīnzhēn bōzhàng 金針撥障 (couching for cataract), gōugē 鉤割 (hooking-and-cutting), zhēn 針 (needling), lào 烙 (cauterizing), diǎn 點 (eye-drops), xǐ 洗 (washes), fū 敷 (poultices), and chuī 吹 (insufflations). The work contains more than three hundred prescriptions and is the principal late-imperial source for jīnzhēn bōzhàng couching technique.
Prefaces
The 凡例 Fánlì (editorial principles), eleven items long, is signed by Fùhuìzǐ Wéifānshì 復慧子維藩氏 (= Fù Guódòng), Fù Rényǔ’s eldest son. It describes the work as transmitted from his father (shòu zì lièzǔ 授自烈祖) after “more than thirty years” of accumulated study, supplemented by consultation with named masters, exhaustive surveys of the available yǎnkē literature, and a careful editorial winnowing (shān fán jí jiǎn 芟繁輯簡). The diagnostic / nosological framework is justified explicitly: “The ancients listed 160 zhèng — too lavish; antiquity recorded 72 zhèng — too sparse; this hán extracts the essential, cuts the superfluous, fixes the count at 108.” The editorial program identifies four canonical sources or models: Huà Yuánhuà 華元化 (華佗) for “raising the head” of the tradition; Ní Zhòngxián 倪仲賢 (倪維德 of Yuánjī qǐwēi KR3em001) “as the qíyù 杞輿 (template)” for the compilation method; the Lóngmù lùn 龍木論 (KR3em003 Mìchuán yǎnkē Lóngmù lùn); and “the seventy-two schools” of received eye-medicine each making their distinctive contribution. Another colophon at the end of the 凡例 is signed by 聖濟殿侍直迪功郎傅國棟維藩氏 (Fù Guódòng, with the late-Míng court medical title Shèngjìdiàn shìzhí dígōngláng 聖濟殿侍直迪功郎), confirming his role as editor and his Imperial-Medical-Court 太醫院 connection.
Abstract
The work’s date and authorship are firm. Fù Rényǔ (zì Yǔnkē) of Mòlíng 秣陵 (Jīnlíng / Nánjīng) came from a hereditary medical family specializing in ophthalmology and practised in Nánjīng for “thirty-odd years” by his own son’s testimony, becoming the most famous late-Míng eye doctor in the lower-Yángzǐ region. He was particularly noted for the jīnzhēn bōzhàng couching operation for cataract and for related minor eye-surgical procedures (gōu, gē, zhēn, lào). The compilation was finalized in Chóngzhēn 17 / Shùnzhì 1, the dynasty-transition year 1644; the conventional dating year used here, 1644, follows both the standard reference works and the work’s own internal evidence. The Kanripo meta dynasty designation 明 is preserved here even though publication likely fell in the first year of Qīng rule in the south. The frontmatter colophon by Fù Guódòng (zì Wéifān) under his court title Shèngjìdiàn shìzhí dígōngláng establishes that the editorial work was completed while the late-Míng imperial medical institutions were still nominally functional — i.e. before the spring of 1644.
Doctrinally the work is the most explicit late-imperial synthesis of three preceding traditions: (1) the Lóngmù / Nāgārjuna lineage of the Mìchuán yǎnkē Lóngmù lùn (KR3em003); (2) the Yuánjī qǐwēi of 倪維德 Ní Wéidé (KR3em001), reproduced in juan 2 nearly verbatim; and (3) the SòngYuán Yínhǎi jīngwēi tradition pseudepigraphically attributed to 孫思邈 (KR3em011). To these Fù Rényǔ adds his own family clinical experience, especially in cataract couching, and absorbs the Sānyīn (three-cause) etiology of 陳無擇 Chén Wúzé. The 108-disease classification supersedes both the older 72-disease scheme of the Lóngmù lùn and the 160-disease scheme of later compendia, becoming canonical in late-Qīng ophthalmology (cf. KR3em006 Mùjīng dàchéng and KR3em014 Jīnguì qǐyuè).
The text survives in dozens of Qīng xylographs. The Jìshìtáng 濟世堂 edition is considered the textual yuánběn 原本; the Japanese Naikaku Bunko 内閣文庫 holds a Qīng manuscript copy formerly of the Hóngyèshān Bunkō 紅葉山文庫. The present digital text (jicheng.tw / 漢學文典) is based on the 1644 Chóngzhēn print held by the National Library of China.
Translations and research
- No full Western-language translation located.
- Modern punctuated editions: standalone in Zhōngyī gǔjí zhěnglǐ cóngshū 中醫古籍整理叢書 (Beijing: Renmin Weisheng, 1990); also in Lǐ Jīngwěi 李經緯 et al. (eds.), Zhōngyī yǎnkē míngzhù jíchéng 中醫眼科名著集成 (Beijing: Huaxia, 1997).
- The work’s couching-for-cataract sections are discussed in Hinrichs and Barnes (eds.), Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History (Harvard, 2013), in the chapters on late-imperial surgery; and in modern surveys including Mǎ Kānwēn 馬堪溫 (ed.), Zhōngyī yǎnkē shǐ 中醫眼科史 (Beijing: Renmin Weisheng, 1991).
- For the lineage genealogy of the Nánjīng Fù family see Géng Jiànlíng 耿鑒庭 et al., Zhōngguó yǎnkē jiāzú shǐ 中國眼科家族史.
Other points of interest
The work’s section on jīnzhēn bōzhàng 金針撥障 (couching for senile cataract by mechanical displacement of the lens with a metal needle) is the most detailed pre-modern description of this technique in the Chinese ophthalmological corpus, and was the immediate textual source for the eighteenth-century imperial Yīzōng jīnjiàn 醫宗金鑑 Yǎnkē xīnfǎ yàojué 眼科心法要訣 (KR3em007) compiled under 吳謙 Wú Qiān. The technique is the same as Indian cataract-couching (kshatrakarman), demonstrating an ophthalmic-surgical transmission stream of Indian origin (via the Lóngmù / Nāgārjuna tradition) that survived in family-secret form among the Jiāngnán late-Míng jīnzhēn shī 金針師 specialists. Fù Rényǔ’s contribution is to bring that family-secret operative regimen out into print.