Hóushé bèiyào mìzhǐ 喉舌備要秘旨
Secret Essentials for Throat-and-Tongue Disorders Anonymous (late-Qīng compilation).
About the work
A late-Qīng anonymous laryngology compilation in one juǎn covering throat-medicine (hóubù 喉部), oral medicine (kǒubù 口部), and dental medicine (yábù 牙部), with a closing appendix of three popular-medicine items: an anti-opium-addiction formula (Zhì yāpiàn yānyǐn qíxiào fāng 治鴉片煙飲奇效方) credited to 屠燮臣 Tú Xièchén of Huánggāng 黃岡 (Húběi) and dated Tóngzhì 2 (1863), an emergency anti-poisoning formula (Jíjiù fúdú liángfāng 急救服毒良方), and a gǔgěng fúzhòu 骨鯁符咒 (bone-impaction talisman-incantation). The work is a heterogeneous compilation rather than a single-author monograph.
The substantive throat-medicine portion of the work is an abridgement-with-modifications of Zhāngshì hóukē qīshíèr zhèng fāmíng 張氏喉科七十二症發明 of 張宗良 Zhāng Zōngliáng (cf. KR3em024) — the same forty-six-syndrome laryngology nomenclature is given (the shuāngsōngluó 雙松虆 / dānsōngluó 單松虆 / shuāngyànzǐ 雙燕子 / dānyànzǐ 單燕子 / shuāngé 雙鵝 / dāné 單鵝 / shuāngchán 雙纏 / dānchán 單纏 series and so on), along with the biàn yánghóu 辨陽喉 / biàn yīnhóu 辨陰喉 / kàn hóuzhōng biàn zàngsè jué 看喉中辨臟色訣 doctrinal section. The doctrinal-overview opening (“Hóubù lùn hóuzhèng” 喉部論喉症) is, however, identifiably excerpted from 張介賓 Zhāng Jièbīn’s Jǐngyuè quánshū 景岳全書 (KR3e0061) — the discussion of xūhuǒ 虛火 vs shíhuǒ 實火, of zhēnyīn 真陰 vs géyáng 格陽 throat-occlusion patterns, the case-records from Xiāngyáng 襄陽 and so on, are verbatim from the Jǐngyuè hóubì section. The work is therefore an explicitly synthetic late-Qīng laryngology compendium combining the Jǐngyuè throat-medicine doctrine with the Zhāng Zōngliáng forty-six-syndrome clinical typology.
Abstract
The work is unsigned and undated; no preface or postface attributes authorship. The included anti-opium formula is dated 1863 (the Tóngzhì guǐhài 同治二年癸亥 colophon of 屠燮臣 Tú Xièchén) and is reported by the secondary postscript-note to have been published in 屠道和 Tú Dàohé’s Pǔjì liángfāng 普濟良方 — establishing 1863 as the terminus a quo for the received recension. The text’s báihóu 白喉 section (“治白喉” 治白喉, with the Shíèrwèi xuánqiào yǐn 十二味玄翹飲) shows the influence of the late-Qīng báihóu literature that crystallised around 張紹修 Zhāng Shànwú’s Báihóu zhìfǎ juéwēi 白喉治法抉微 (1864) and the Báihóu jiābǎo 白喉家寶 tradition, supporting a post-1864 date for the received compilation. The terminus ante quem cannot be more closely fixed than the late-Qīng (the work is preserved in a late-Qīng / Republican manuscript tradition). The composition window adopted here is therefore 1863–1900.
The work is one of several late-Qīng provincial hóukē compilations that crystallised the Zhāngshì hóukē 張氏喉科 forty-six-syndrome nomenclature (the late-eighteenth-century work of 張宗良 Zhāng Zōngliáng of Sūzhōu) into a more accessible clinical handbook by combining it with the Jǐngyuè doctrinal framework and an explicit pharmacopoeia. The opening doctrinal section’s insistence that hóubì 喉痹 is not simply a xiānghuǒ 相火 (“ministerial fire”) syndrome to be treated with bitter-cold cooling, but must be sub-classified by xū / shí 虛實, zhēnyīn 真陰 vs géyáng 格陽, and treated with warming and tonifying medicine when indicated, is faithful to the Jǐngyuè tradition and aligns the work with the broader late-Qīng wēnbǔ 溫補 reaction against the bitter-cold attacking-treatment orthodoxy of mid-Qīng Wēnbìng xué 溫病學 throat-medicine. The closing pharmacopoeia is substantial — Zǐpáo sǎn 紫袍散, Yùlóng sǎn 玉龍散, Jīn-yào-shi 金鑰匙, Bīngpéng sǎn 冰硼散, Sānhuáng sǎn 三黃散, Hóngbǎo dān 洪寶丹, Yángdú sǎn 陽毒散, Chōnghé sǎn 沖和散, Huánglóng sǎn 黃龍散, Liǎngyí sǎn 兩宜散, Xīguāshuò 西瓜霜 with detailed compounding instructions, and an unusual bǎishé qífāng 白喉奇方 of duck-dung-on-tile recipe.
The work is heterogeneous in genre (clinical doctrine + syndrome-typology + pharmacopoeia + emergency formulary + incantation + anti-addiction formula) and is best understood as a late-Qīng pragmatic clinical handbook for the hóukē generalist rather than a unified treatise; this is characteristic of the regional Qīng hóukē tradition preserved in the jicheng.tw 漢學文典 digital corpus.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
For the Zhāngshì hóukē 張氏喉科 forty-six-syndrome nomenclature on which the substantive throat-medicine section is based see KR3em024 Hóukē zhǐzhǎng; for the Jǐngyuè doctrinal source of the opening discussion see KR3e0061 Jǐngyuè quánshū 景岳全書 (chapters on hóubì). For the late-Qīng báihóu literature in which the work’s báihóu section participates see Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 (UBC, 2014).