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白喉捷要合編

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Text ID
KR3em031
Date
1867–1907
Dynasty
清

Báihóu jiéyào hébiān 白喉捷要合編

Combined Edition of Essentials for the Rapid Treatment of Diphtheria by 張紹修 Zhāng Shàoxiū (字 Shànwú 善吾) and 黃炳乾 Huáng Bǐngqián (字 Táopǔ 陶普); combined and printed by 嚴承甸 Yán Chéngdiàn (preface dated Guāngxù 33, late spring / 1907).

About the work

A short late-Qīng diphtheria (báihóu 白喉) handbook in one juǎn, assembling two earlier short tracts from the southwest-China and northwest-China báihóu epidemic-medicine literature: (i) 張紹修’s Shíyì báihóu zhènglùn 時疫白喉證論 / Báihóu xùlùn 白喉嚙續論 (originally one tract, dated by the author’s reference to Tóngzhì dīngmǎo 同治丁卯 = 1867, with circulation continuing through the late-Guāngxù period), and (ii) 黃炳乾’s further compilation of approved formulae, acupuncture rules, and case-notes, dated Guāngxù chūyuán 光緒初元 — the preface explicitly cites his service-base at 酒泉 Jiǔquán public office in Gānsù, indicating the late 1870s–1880s — and brought together by 嚴承甸 of Mǎpíng 馬平 (Guǎngxī) in 1907 when a Wǔgāng 武岡 (Húnán) epidemic struck his own household. The work is structured as: looking-method (kànfǎ 看法), distinguishing cold from fire (biàn hánhuǒ zhèng 辨寒火證), treatment-method, prescriptions (eighteen plus, plus prescription-mnemonic verses yàofāng gēkuò 藥方歌括), and acupuncture-rules with a “no-treatment” list of seven hopeless prognostic signs. Strongly partisan for the cold-medication (cooling) faction of báihóu therapy: the central formulae 神功辟邪散, 神仙活命湯, and the heroic 龍虎二仙湯 are uncompromisingly anti-diaphoretic, anti-warming, and anti-purgative — exactly the cooling style that 王裕慶 Wáng Yùqìng later attacks in KR3em032 Báihóu biànzhèng.

Prefaces

The book carries two prefaces. The first, by 嚴承甸 Yán Chéngdiàn of Mǎpíng 馬平 (Guǎngxī), is dated 光緒三十年丁未季春 — the cyclical signs 丁未 in fact correspond to Guāngxù 33 (1907), not 30, and the cataloguing date here follows that. Yán describes how he himself owed his recovery from báihóu to the Yángshì báihóu 楊氏白喉 (the 楊龍九-tradition manual; see KR3em030), and how when his wife later contracted báihóu at Dūliáng 都梁 (Wǔgāng) in winter bǐngwǔ 丙午 (1906–7), two physicians failed, but the 神功辟邪方 and 神仙活命丹 of the present collection cured her in four doses. The second preface, by 黃炳乾 of Xiāngxī 湘西 (Húnán) styled Táopǔ 陶普, dated 光緒歲在著維單于仲夏月 (cycle zhuówéi dānyǔ = jǐmǎo 己卯, sixth month / 1879) signed at his Jiǔquán 酒泉 yamen, frames the work as a Báihóu zhènglùn 白喉證論 supplement adapting 張紹修’s south-China protocols to the dry north-west, with added acupuncture-needle prescription methods (針法 zhēnfǎ: incising the shǎoshāng 少商 well-point, the under-tongue veins, and so on) and an extensive needle-tempering method against horse-bit iron poisoned with bird-bile and jǔn 麝.

Abstract

The catalog meta records this text as anonymous and with no dynasty. The internal evidence is unambiguous: it is a late-Qīng compilation by two named Qīng authors (張紹修 and 黃炳乾), brought together and prefaced by a third (嚴承甸) in 1907. The persons-list is corrected accordingly. The composition window for the received recension is therefore 1867 (張紹修 dates his báihóu case-experience to Tóngzhì dīngmǎo 同治丁卯) to 1907 (嚴承甸’s 光緒三十年丁未季春 preface and printing).

The work belongs to the prolific late-Qīng báihóu tract literature that grew up in response to the spread of diphtheria epidemics from JiāngsūZhèjiāng in the 1840s into Húnán, Guǎngxī, Yúnnán, Guìzhōu, and eventually the north-west by the 1870s–1880s. Its therapeutic frame is anti-diaphoretic (jì biǎo 忌表): the opening shíyì báihóu zhènglùn 時疫白喉證論 enumerates 十難 “ten difficulties” of báihóu therapy, each of which warns against a specific class of failure (e.g. mistaking báihóu for ordinary cold and giving麻、桂、羌、防、升、柴、細辛、蘇葉; mistaking it for true cold and giving附、桂、炮姜; over-purging with硝、黃; sticking too long to a single formulary; missing the seven-day fatal window). The acupuncture-needle method appended by 黃炳乾 is technically the most distinctive element: a long description of how to forge a 馬銜鐵 mǎxián tiě needle from horse-bit iron, temper it in a thirteen-ingredient decoction including 鴨嘴膽礬, 沒藥, 川山甲, 沉香, 慈石, etc., insert it red-hot into a slab of pork-rind to draw the medicinal essence in, finally bury it for “fire-poison” extraction; the resulting needle is then used to prick the少商穴 and submucosal veins under the tongue for venesection therapy.

張紹修 (字 Shànwú 善吾, of Huáichuān 淮川 in southern Húnán — that is, Liúyáng 瀏陽) is named in his own colophon as the author of the diphtheria-essay and as a 學博 xuébó (provincial education-official); his cited co-author 蕭海雍 Xiāo Hǎiyōng wrote a parallel Báihóu zhènglùn 白喉證論 cited in the northern preface but not preserved here in full. 黃炳乾 (字 Táopǔ 陶普) of Xiāngxī 湘西 was a Húnán xuéshì who became 幕遊 itinerant adviser to officials in the Qīnghǎi / Gānsù corridor; he describes his fieldwork against diphtheria epidemics from 湟中 in 1875 onwards, into 甘泉 and 酒泉. 嚴承甸 of Mǎpíng 馬平 (modern Liǔzhōu 柳州, Guǎngxī) was a county-level official posted at Wǔgāng 武岡 (Húnán) at the time of the 1906–7 epidemic.

The “seven無治 hopeless signs” list (which the rival author 王裕慶 of KR3em032 attacks point-by-point) is: white covering the throat after seven days without remitting; constipation under prescribed therapy; spontaneous diarrhoea without therapy or unceasing diarrhoea under therapy; un-resolving sub-mandibular swelling; vomiting under therapy; aphonia; spontaneous detachment of the white slough; dry throat without saliva; black covering of the天庭 forehead; fixed staring eyes with blue lips; opisthotonos with inability to swallow medicine.

Translations and research

  • No standalone modern Western-language critical edition or monographic study located.
  • The work figures regularly in modern Chinese histories of late-Qīng diphtheria therapy as one of the consolidating compilations of the anti-diaphoretic báihóu school, alongside Báihóu jìbiǎo juéwēi 白喉忌表抉微 (the Dòngzhǔ 洞主 / 耐修子 Nàixiūzǐ tract).
  • Hinrichs and Barnes (eds.), Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History (Harvard, 2013), Part IV, covers the broader late-imperial epidemic-medicine context.

Other points of interest

The text preserves an unusually explicit method for shielding the physician from contagion: he is to fast no breakfast, drink one cup of Xiónghuáng 雄黃 wine or eat raw garlic before entering the patient’s chamber, settle his mind, and avoid jest, lust, and frivolity at the bedside. The seven-character protective gēkuò 歌括 (mnemonic verses) at the end of the work are an interesting specimen of late-Qīng popular medical pedagogy, rendering each prescription into a memorisable couplet.

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