Yóushì hóukē mìshū 尤氏喉科秘書
The Yóu Family’s Secret Book on Laryngology by 尤乘 Yóu Chéng (zì Shēngzhōu 生洲, fl. mid-late 17th c.), compiler (jí 輯).
About the work
A one-juǎn Qīng-period laryngology manual transmitted from the Yóu lineage of Liángxī 梁溪 (Wúxī 無錫), continuing the family medical tradition of 尤仲仁 Yóu Zhòngrén that is preserved as KR3em021 (Yóushì hóukē 尤氏喉科). The text combines a systematic 喉症總論 (general discussion of throat disorders) — grounded in the doctrine that all such conditions ultimately reduce to “fire” (火) arising from the shǎoyīn 少陰 and shǎoyáng 少陽 channels which “all network into the throat” — with a clinical taxonomy of named conditions (hóubì 喉痹, rǔé 乳鵝, hóuyōng 喉癰, hóujūn 喉菌, hóuxuǎn 喉癬, chánhóu fēng 纏喉風, zǒumǎ hóufēng 走馬喉風, suǒhóu fēng 鎖喉風, etc.), and an extensive formulary of insufflation powders (chuīyào 吹藥), gargles, decoctions, and external applications.
Prefaces
The work opens with a preface (序) that frames laryngology as one of the “lesser arts” of medicine but argues that “though one dot of yùshuāng 玉霜 [snow-jade powder] or half a measure of hóngfěn 紅粉 [red powder] is a small thing, it can rescue from imminent death within a moment” — small art, vast benefit. The author confesses he never formally studied medicine but, distressed by the harm done by ignorant practitioners, sought a means to save lives. He recounts that a Mr. 陳在豐 Chén Zàifēng acquired the present volume from the Yóu family of Liángxī 梁溪 for fifty jīn of silver and entrusted it to him. The preface is dated Qiánlóng 46, xīnchǒu 辛丑 (1781), with a further marginal note that “in Qiánlóng 60 yǐmǎo 乙卯 (1795) 馮岩峰 Féng Yánfēng of Zhècí 浙慈 transmitted and hand-copied” the manuscript. The two dates record successive Qiánlóng-era stages in the transmission of an earlier Yóu-school original.
Abstract
The work is attributed in the Kanripo catalog meta to Yóu Chéng 尤乘 (zì Shēngzhōu 生洲), a disciple of 李中梓 Lǐ Zhōngzǐ active in Sūzhōu in the Kāngxī era and best known for editing Lǐ’s medical writings (the Shìcái sān shū 士材三書) and for his own Shòushì qīngbiān 壽世青編 (KR3l0144). The 尤 surname and “Liángxī Yóushì” 梁溪尤氏 locus given in the 1781 preface tie this mìshū into the same Wúxī Yóu-school lineage that produced KR3em021 Yóushì hóukē of 尤仲仁 Yóu Zhòngrén, suggesting the present work is best understood as a redaction by — or under the name of — Yóu Chéng of a Yóu-clan family-secret manuscript on laryngology, subsequently transmitted through 陳在豐 Chén Zàifēng (1781) and 馮岩峰 Féng Yánfēng (1795). The composition window for the received recension is therefore set at 1660 (a defensible terminus a quo for Yóu Chéng’s active publishing period) to 1795 (the latest transmission date in the manuscript itself).
The text’s clinical doctrine is mainstream late-imperial: throat disorders are categorized by whether they manifest as 痛 (pain), 腫 (swelling) or 痹 (obstruction), arise from “deficient fire” (xū huǒ 虛火) or “repletion fire” (shí huǒ 實火), and are addressed by a coordinated regimen of chuīyào powders that combine sweepers of “wind-phlegm” with heat-clearing and toxin-resolving drugs. Sixteen-conditions and four-conditions categorical lists of fatal signs (juézhèng 絕症) provide prognostic markers that recur with slight variation across the Qīng laryngology corpus and are common to the family of texts KR3em021–KR3em028.
Translations and research
- No standalone Western-language translation or monographic study located.
- For Yóu Chéng’s broader medical activity, see his disciple-line context in Wáng Yùchuān 王玉川 et al., Zhōngyī gèjiā xuéshuō 中醫各家學說 (modern textbook); and the Yóu-clan laryngology lineage is documented in modern Chinese specialist surveys such as Géng Jiànlíng 耿鑒庭 et al., Zhōngguó zhōngyī hóukē fāzhǎn shǐ 中國中醫喉科發展史.
Other points of interest
The catalogued price — “fifty jīn of silver” paid by Chén Zàifēng to obtain the original Yóu-clan manuscript — is a rare explicit late-imperial datum on the commercial valuation of a private medical-secret family register.
Links
- 尤氏喉科秘書 (jicheng.tw 漢學文典)
- Kanseki DB
- Companion work in the same lineage: KR3em021 Yóushì hóukē by 尤仲仁.