Cóngguì cǎotáng yīàn 叢桂草堂醫案
Medical Case Records of the Cóngguì Thatched Hall by 袁焯 Yuán Zhuó 袁焯 (hào Guìshēng 桂生, late-Qīng / early-Republican Jiāngnán physician).
About the work
Four juǎn of clinical case records by the late-Qīng / early-Republican Yángzhōu 揚州 physician Yuán Zhuó, named for his consulting-studio Cóngguì cǎotáng 叢桂草堂 (“Thatched Hall of the Massed Cassia”). Each case is given in the densely allusive Yángzhōu manner: a brief pulse-and-symptom statement followed by the diagnosis, the rationale, the prescription, and (often) a long meta-clinical reflection citing the Sùwèn 素問, the Língshū 靈樞, the Nánjīng 難經, 張機 Zhāng Zhòngjǐng, and the major Jīn-Yuán / Qīng authorities. The opening preface dilates programmatically on the historical evolution of Chinese diagnostic technique from the Sù-Líng-Nán pulse-and-colour synthesis, through Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s incorporation of voice and respiration, the Suí-Táng turn (Chǔ Yándào 褚彥道 = Chǔ Chéng 褚澄 and Sūn Sīmiǎo 孫思邈) to symptom-and-likes-and-causes assessment, the Jīn-Yuán four masters with the Míng synthesis of Hán Tiānjué 韓天爵 and Táo Jiéān 陶節庵, on to the wēnrè / shīrè warm-disease developments — a self-conscious genealogical placement of Yuán Zhuó’s own clinical method.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with a substantial author/disciple preface — anchored in a recollection of Yuán Zhuó’s grandfather Xiùshān 秀山 — that opens: “My late grandfather Xiùshāngōng used to say: an old physician judges illness as an old clerk judges a case. The one who judges illness well must treat it well. The former worthy Lù Jiǔzhī 陸九芝 (陸懋修) said: ‘A case (àn 案) is a judgement, a prescription (fāng 方) is a method.’ Only one who can judge with method should be called a fāngàn 方案 (case-and-prescription) physician.” The preface then sketches the genealogy of Chinese diagnostic doctrine described above and concludes by locating Yuán’s clinical method within this lineage, with the cóngguì cǎotáng studio designation invoking Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn fāng 千金方 image of the physician’s hall.
Abstract
Yuán Zhuó 袁焯 (hào Guìshēng 桂生, c. 1860s–1930s; CBDB 655835 / 655836 records the name without dates) was a Yángzhōu (Jiāngsū) clinician practising in the late Qīng and into the early Republican period. He was the grandson of Yuán Xiùshān 袁秀山, also a physician, and represents the third generation of a hereditary Yángzhōu medical family. His clinical style is the Yángzhōu / Huáiyīn synthesis of the 吳塘 Wú Jūtōng warm-disease school with classical Shānghán lùn practice; he is conventionally associated with the late-Qīng Yángzhōu wing of the wēnbìng tradition. The composition window 1900–1930 reflects the late-Qīng / early-Republican origin of the cases and the early Republican printing; the work was repatriated through the hxwd project from a Japanese collection.
The casebook is one of the better-organised late-Qīng provincial casebooks, distinguished by its explicit citation of classical pulse-doctrine in nearly every entry and its programmatic genealogical framing. It is a principal source for reconstructing Yángzhōu clinical practice in the generation succeeding 吳塘 Wú Jūtōng.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located. Modern Chinese reprintings include the Rénmín Wèishēng Chūbǎnshè edition (1959) and treatments in regional Yángzhōu medical history.
Links
- Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, ch. 8.
- Kanseki DB
- 叢桂草堂醫案