Kélùn jīngzhǐ 咳論經旨
The Classical Doctrine on Cough by 凌德 Líng Dé.
About the work
A three-juǎn late-Qīng treatise dedicated exclusively to the medicine of ké 咳 (cough) by the Hángzhōu 杭州 physician 凌德 Líng Dé. The work is included in the KR3em (laryngology / hóukē) sub-collection because of its clinical adjacency to throat-medicine, although its proper subject is cough, classed in the canonical Chinese medical taxonomy under fèi 肺 (lung) rather than hóu 喉 (throat). The book is a jīngzhǐ 經旨 — a classical-doctrine digest — that systematically excerpts from the Sùwèn 素問 and Língshū 靈樞 of the Huángdì nèijīng 黃帝內經, the Nánjīng 難經, the Jīnguì yàolüè 金匱要略 of 張機 Zhāng Jī (Zhāng Zhòngjǐng), and the cough-related case-discussions of 巢元方 Cháo Yuánfāng, 徐彬 Xú Zhōngkě (Xú Bīn), 喻昌 Yù Jiāyán (Yù Chāng), and 周揚俊 Zhōu Yángjùn — each excerpt followed by the commentary tradition (王冰 Wáng Bīng and others) and, where appropriate, by Líng Dé’s own clinical observations. Juǎn 1 is built around the Sùwèn and concludes with Xú Zhōngkě’s cautionary observations on cough as a xūsǔn 虛損 (depletion-injury) gateway; juǎn 2 reproduces and expounds the Língshū and Nánjīng lung-and-cough chapters; juǎn 3 reproduces the Jīnguì yàolüè cough-related chapters (Fèiwěi fèiyōng 肺痿肺癰, Shàngqì hóuzhōng zuò shuǐjī shēng 上氣喉中作水雞聲) with the commentaries of 趙以德 Zhào Yǐdé, 周揚俊 Zhōu Yángjùn, and 喻昌 Yù Jiāyán.
Abstract
The work is unsigned in the digital edition consulted here; the author is identified by the catalog metadata and corroborated by his other extant works as 凌德 Líng Dé of Hángzhōu, a late-Qīng physician who also produced the gynecological Nǚkē zhézhōng zuǎnyào 女科折衷纂要 (KR3ei024). Líng Dé was active in the late Guāngxù era (1875–1908); the Kélùn jīngzhǐ is undated internally and there is no preface in the digital edition. The text-form (a Confucian-style classical-doctrine digest) and the use of late-Qīng commentary literature give a broad composition window of ca. 1850 to ca. 1900.
The work is essentially a clinical florilegium for the practitioner — it gathers in one place the canonical Chinese-medical doctrine of cough as it had been received and elaborated through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — and is not an original treatise in the sense of the throat-medicine works in this sub-collection. Its programmatic position is articulated in the Xú Zhōngkě yuē 徐忠可曰 excerpt at the end of juǎn 1: cough is the great gateway to xūsǔn (depletion-injury) and is therefore the most critical chapter in clinical practice; Zhāng Zhòngjǐng did not establish a separate gate for it but merely appended it to the tányǐn 痰飲 (phlegm-rheum) and fèiwěi 肺痿 chapters; the treatment of cough must therefore proceed from clearing tányǐn as the foundation, modulated by the recognition of cold-pattern admixture. This programmatic framing places the work squarely in the late-Qīng Wēnbìng / Jīnguì synthesis stream.
The textual interest of the work lies less in original doctrine than in its careful preservation of the exegetical commentary tradition. The 王冰 Wáng Bīng commentaries on the Sùwèn are reproduced verbatim, as are the xīnjiàozhèng 新校正 collation notes of the Sòng Yīshū jú 醫書局, the Jiǎyǐ jīng 甲乙經 readings of 皇甫謐 Huángfǔ Mì, the Tàisù 太素 readings of 楊上善 Yáng Shàngshàn, and the Màijīng 脈經 readings of 王叔和 Wáng Shūhé. The work is therefore one of several useful late-Qīng Nèijīng-tradition study-aids for the cough-respiratory complex.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
For the doctrinal tradition of cough in classical Chinese medicine see the Sùwèn Ké lùn 素問咳論 chapter and the Jīnguì yàolüè lung-disorder chapters in any standard modern Chinese-medical edition; for the xūsǔn tradition in which cough is the principal clinical sign see the late-Míng / Qīng xūsǔn literature (especially KR3e0089 Lǐxū yuánjiàn 理虛元鑑).