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焦氏喉科枕秘

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Text ID
KR3em023
Date
1600–1868
Dynasty
清

Jiāoshì hóukē zhěnmì 焦氏喉科枕秘

Master Jiāo’s Pillow-Secret Laryngology Anonymous (Jiāo-clan lineage manuscript); first printed by 金保三 Jīn Bǎosān of Wúzhōng 吳中 with preface by 應寶時 Yīng Bǎoshí (1868).

About the work

A two-juǎn lineage-transmitted laryngology manual circulating under the prestige-name of an otherwise unidentified “Master Jiāo” 焦氏. Juǎn 1 — zhìhóu mìfǎ 治喉秘法 — sets out the practical doctrine: the integration of needling (zhēnshí 針石) with insufflation powders and decoctions; rules for the use of opening-the-pass (tōngguān sǎn 通關散), wind-and-toxin sweeping powders (zhuīfēng sǎn 追風散), the sānhuáng liánggé 三黃涼膈 cooling-decoction family, and the èrchén jīngjiè 二陳荊芥 phlegm-and-wind decoctions; the staged use of anaesthetic (máyào 麻藥) before needling and the “secret powder” (mìyào) after; a head-to-tail tour through the named conditions (single and double rǔé 乳鵝, chánhóu fēng 纏喉風, zǒumǎ hóufēng 走馬喉風, hóujūn 喉菌, hóuxuǎn 喉癬, suǒhóu fēng 鎖喉風, fēiyáng hóufēng 飛揚喉風, etc.); and characteristic line-drawings (shěnzhèng huìtú 審症繪圖). Juǎn 2 — yìngyòng liángfāng 應用良方 — gives the formulary, opening with a list of the standard drugs (mìyào fāng 秘藥方) and then prescriptions for each of the named conditions.

Prefaces

The 1868 preface by 應寶時 Yīng Bǎoshí (Yǒngkāng 永康) reports that “金保三 Jīn Bǎosān of Wúzhōng, a practitioner of the Xuān-Qí 軒岐 [Yellow Emperor / Qí Bó] medical tradition who has penetrated the Língshū 靈樞, Sùwèn 素問, and the Nánjīng 難經 of 秦越人 Qín Yuèrén, recently acquired Hóukē zhěnmì — a book in which needling and decoctions are applied jointly, with diagnosis-by-picture and exhaustive detail — and, finding that no duplicate existed in circulation, conferred with 孫雲齋 Sūn Yúnzhāi, who took it upon himself to gather the funds for publication.” Yīng adds the standard pathophysiological doctrine — “swelling of the throat belongs to phlegm, hóufēng belongs to fire; the treatment is to dispel wind, dissolve phlegm, resolve heat, and open stagnation” — and warns against the use of pungent-dispersing drugs that “fan the wind-fire and produce ulcerative scorching.” The preface is dated Tóngzhì 7, wùchén 戊辰, first month of spring (1868). The book is therefore a Tóng-zhì-period print of a private Jiāo-clan manuscript of substantially older — and now unrecoverable — date.

Abstract

The standard scholarship of Chinese laryngology (cf. Géng Jiànlíng 耿鑒庭, Zhōngguó zhōngyī hóukē fāzhǎn shǐ 中國中醫喉科發展史) treats Jiāoshì hóukē zhěnmì as one of the most influential of the late-imperial jiāchuán 家傳 (family-transmitted) laryngology corpora, alongside the Yóu-clan tradition (KR3em021, KR3em022) and the Zhāng tradition of KR3em024 Hóukē zhǐzhǎng. The “Master Jiāo” of the title is unidentifiable in standard biographical records; the catalog meta accordingly gives no author and no dynasty. The manuscript’s pre-1868 circulation is well-attested — it is quoted by later Qīng laryngology authors and was widely copied by clinicians — but its precise origin is opaque. The terminus a quo of c. 1600 reflects the conventional dating of the late-Míng / early-Qīng emergence of the systematic zhēnyào bìngshī 針藥並施 (combined needling and prescription) laryngological genre to which the work belongs; the terminus ante quem of 1868 is fixed by the Tóngzhì-7 preface and printing. Specialists may wish to tighten the bracket downwards in light of textual collations with the Yóu-clan and Zhāng-clan witnesses.

Doctrinally the text aligns with the orthodox late-imperial position that all throat conditions derive ultimately from “fire” and “phlegm” routed through the shǎoyīn 少陰 and shǎoyáng 少陽 channels; it differs from purely insufflation-based manuals in giving needling and incision-and-drainage at least equal weight, and in supplying systematic anatomical illustrations.

Translations and research

  • No standalone Western-language translation or monographic study located.
  • The text is discussed in the modern Chinese specialist literature on laryngology, notably in 耿鑒庭 et al., Zhōngguó zhōngyī hóukē fāzhǎn shǐ (chapter on Qīng family lineages).
  • Modern critical edition: 焦氏喉科枕秘, in Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū 海外回流中醫善本古籍叢書; also reprinted in Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù 中國中醫古籍總目 lineage.

Other points of interest

The work is one of the principal Qīng laryngology texts to give explicit pictorial diagnostic charts; the integration of needling with insufflation-powder therapy in juǎn 1 makes it an important witness to the persistence of the zhēnshí tradition in a period otherwise dominated by drug therapy.

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