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喉科大成

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Text ID
KR3em033
Date
1836–1860
Dynasty
清

Hóukē dàchéng 喉科大成

Great Synthesis of Throat Medicine by 馬渭齡 Mǎ Wèilíng (mid-Qīng); posthumously transmitted by his son 馬傳鈺 Mǎ Chuányù (postface 1836 or shortly after).

About the work

A substantial four-juǎn Qīng laryngology synthesis covering the field comprehensively. Juǎn 1 sets out the classical anatomy and physiology — extracts from the Lèijīng 《類經》 on the throat-meridian system, the Língshū 靈樞 distinction of yān (food-passage) from hóu (air-passage), reflections on the huìyàn 會厭 and xuányōng 懸雍, the twelve-segment doctrine of the throat (jiànggōng chónglóu shí’èrjí 絳宮重樓十二級), the Sùwèn and Língshū passage-list, pulse-method (liǎngcùn fúhóng ér yì zhě 兩寸浮洪而溢者 = throat-paralysis), and acupuncture-needle protocols for shuāngé / dāné / suǒhóufēng. Juǎn 2–3 (the bulk of the work) are the disease-by-disease syndromologies: classical hóubì 喉痹 nosology, the eighteen-syndrome scheme of 許槤’s KR3em029 tradition, and the dozens of paired蛾 / 癰 / 風 / 疳 / 槽 / 漏 / 疔 / 菌 / 瘤 conditions of late-Qīng laryngology, each with diagnostics, prognosis, and prescriptions. Juǎn 4 is a comparative formulary — gǔjīn fāngyào zhǔzhì fēnlèi 古今方藥主治分類 — that arrays prescriptions under nine therapeutic registers (fēngrè zhǒngbì 風熱腫痹, tánxián jiébì 痰涎結痹, shírè zhǒngtòng 實熱腫痛, xūrè zhǒngtòng 虛熱腫痛, yīnxū hóutòng 陰虛喉痛, yángxū hóutòng 陽虛喉痛, yīnhán yāntòng 陰寒咽痛, kèhán yāntòng 客寒咽痛, wēndú hóubì 瘟毒喉痹), citing 《活人》, 《金匱》, 《本事》, 《三因》, 《和劑》, 《綱目》, 《入門》, 《準繩》, 《金鑑》, 《心悟》, 《尊生》, 《徐峨峰瘍醫》 and many other parent-works; the formulary closes with a substantial 寒疫吹藥 section (Chénshì mìfāng 陳氏秘方 báihóu protocol using fùzǐ + shàngguì + rénzhōnghuáng) and a long appendix of 制法 zhìfǎ drug-preparation techniques. The framework is the most architecturally ambitious of the seven hóukē texts in this batch and earns the boast in its title dàchéng 大成 “great synthesis”.

Prefaces

The only paratext preserved in _000.txt is a short bá 跋 by 馬傳鈺 Mǎ Chuányù, son of the author: “In summer of Dàoguāng bǐngshēn 道光丙申 (1836) my late father, mindful that the throat is the gate of life and death, broadly assembled from the various books the ancient and modern formulae and the family’s secret prescriptions, and compiled them into a single编 named Hóukē dàchéng, kept long in his book-trunks. I, Yù, received my late father’s oral instruction; on each presented syndrome I distinguished虛 from實, examined form and colour, prescribed by syndrome, and over more than twenty years was not wrong one in a hundred — this is truly the ferry-bridge of laryngology. But to relieve a single locality is not the same as to spread the work; therefore I have wholly transcribed it, hiding nothing. May the gentlemen of high attainment not laugh at our omissions but supplement what we have not reached, then I shall be greatly fortunate. Submitted respectfully by 馬傳鈺 Mǎ Chuányù, the author’s son.”

Abstract

The catalog meta names 馬渭齡 清 as author. The postface establishes the principal facts: the work was compiled by 馬渭齡 in or shortly before summer Dàoguāng 16 / 1836 (the postface itself is dated to that summer but covers the preceding compilation period), remained in manuscript in the family library, was transmitted orally to his son 馬傳鈺 over twenty-plus years of practice, and was printed by Chuányù in the late-Dàoguāng / Xiánfēng period. The composition-and-printing window for the received recension is therefore 1836–ca. 1860; the catalog-entry’s “Qīng” is correct. Neither father nor son has a CBDB record, and the family is otherwise unknown in standard Qīng biographical reference. The work survives via the jicheng.tw 漢學文典 digital corpus and is essentially a private family-medicine archive that was eventually committed to print.

The intellectual position is inclusive rather than partisan: unlike the báihóu tract literature (which divides sharply into pro-cooling and anti-cooling camps; see KR3em031 vs KR3em032), 馬渭齡 builds his formulary out of all nine cold/hot/虛/實 registers, preserves the Chénshì mìfāng warming protocol for寒疫 báihóu (fùzǐ + shàngguì + rénzhōnghuáng) as one option alongside the cooling formularies for 火盛 cases, and explicitly admits that “I myself have repeatedly used 荊防敗毒散 with殭蠶, 薄荷, both in noshing and in drinking, with effect” (余按：風熱喉痹，痰涎壅甚，屢用荊防敗毒散加殭蠶、薄荷且噙且服亦效). The whole-corpus comparative approach is signalled in the zǒnglùn citations to《活人》 (Huórénshū 活人書), 《金匱》, 《本事》 (許叔微 Xǔ Shūwēi’s 《本事方》), 《三因》 (陳言 Chén Yán’s 《三因極一病證方論》), 《和劑》 (the official 《太平惠民和劑局方》), 《綱目》 (李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn’s 《本草綱目》), 《入門》 (李梴 Lǐ Chān’s 《醫學入門》), 《準繩》 (王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng’s 《證治準繩》), 《金鑑》 (the official Qing 《醫宗金鑑》), 《心悟》 (程國彭 Chéng Guópéng’s 《醫學心悟》), 《尊生》 (沈金鰲 Shěn Jīnáo’s 《雜病源流犀燭》 etc.), and 《徐峨峰瘍醫》 — i.e. the standard SòngYuánMíngQīng canon of internal medicine and yángyī 瘍醫 surgery, with throat-disease drawn out of each.

The closing appendix transmits the family’s set of named techniques — the eight-jewel powder Bābǎo dān 八寶丹, the Liùbǎo zhūshā + Zhūbǎo dān line of “blowing powders”, the long zhìfǎ 制法 of rénzhōngbái (a seven-week purification cycle of water-soaking, alum-soaking, live-water rinsing, sun-airing, steam-roasting, evening-dewing, and fire-baking), and the Shānwūguī 山烏龜 small-amount preparation — characteristic of the technical depth that distinguishes a family-tradition manual from a derivative tract. Notable too is the careful nosology of liúxīn é 溜心蛾, biānqiū 邊鰍 (with upstream and downstream subtypes), hánzhū / shuāngzhū / sàihǎi, báichán, huángchán, and the diagnostic sign of the male / pregnant-female “fine white thread” from the soft palate to the upper-incisors, which the work reads as evidence of jīngxuè shāngsǔn (semen-and-blood injury) in men or zàngjīngxuè yǐ yǎngtāi (storing essence-blood to nourish the fetus) in pregnant women.

Translations and research

  • The text is listed under the throat-medicine section of major Chinese classical-medicine indices (e.g. the 漢學文典 jicheng.tw catalogue) but has no significant Western-language critical literature.
  • No standalone modern critical edition or monographic study located.
  • Modern Chinese 喉科 specialists routinely cite the work for its inclusive formulary and its 寒疫 / 熱疫 dual treatment of báihóu.

Other points of interest

The 寒疫吹藥 Chénshì mìfāng 陳氏秘方 — a three-ingredient blowing-powder of 附子 + 上桂 + 人中黃 for “cold-epidemic” white-throat — is the most economical specimen of the warming-school báihóu therapy in this batch, and one of the few in the late-Qīng laryngology literature that committed an aconite-cinnamon protocol to print (as against KR3em032 王裕慶, who advocates the same approach polemically but mostly through internal decoctions). The work’s open quotation of nine source-traditions makes it useful as a Qing-period bibliographic survey of hóukē literature, even apart from its clinical value.

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