Chéng Xìngxuān yīàn 程杏軒醫案
Medical Case Records of Chéng Xìngxuān by 程文囿 Chéng Wényòu 程文囿 (zì Guāngzǔ 觀泉, hào Xìngxuān 杏軒, fl. early nineteenth century), of Xīnān 新安 (Ānhuī).
About the work
A six-juǎn casebook of the early-nineteenth-century Xīnān physician Chéng Xìngxuān, organised in three successive series (chūjí 初集, zàijí 再集 / xùlù 續錄, yīshù chuīzhěn 醫述輯錄), each prefaced separately and published over Chéng’s working life from 1796 onward. The cases display the Xīnān synthesis at its early-Jiāqìng stage and are unusually rich in extended pulse-diagnostic argumentation and in the detailed practical reasoning about prescription-composition. Chéng was a major regional practitioner of Hézhōu 歙州 in southern Ānhuī.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with two important prefaces. First the Liú xù 劉序 (preface by Liú Quánzhī 劉權之 of Chāngshā 長沙, dated Jiāqìng shínián mèngxià yuè 嘉慶十年孟夏月 — early summer 1805): “The Xīnān master Chéng Xìngxuānzǐ is deeply versed in medicine; he has composed a Yīàn in which the principles are exhaustively expounded. I have therefore reflected: among medical books, only the Língshū and Sùwèn are the most ancient — though one dare not affirm that they are post-Shén-nóng compositions, that they are works of those divine in this art in the Warring States is beyond doubt. From this we may extend to the Zuǒzhuàn commentary on the Chūnqiū and the discussions of physician Hé and physician Huǎn 醫和醫緩, and further to the Zhōuguān 周官 specifications of the yīshī 醫師, shíyī 食醫, yángyī 瘍醫 etc., where what is said about the yīnyáng fēngyǔ huìmíng 陰陽風雨晦明 generating illness, and the variations of the nine orifices and nine viscera, is concise in word but complete in meaning — the principles of medicine are exhausted there. Later authors made compositions, each generation supplying its strengths and weaknesses, frequently both visible; Chéngzǐ removes the weaknesses and gathers the strengths — he has heart-attained gain. The Yīàn may be transmitted alongside the Líng and Sù.” The second preface (Bào xù 鮑序 by Bào Yǐwén 鮑以文 of the famed Chángtáng 長塘 Bào family of book-collectors and printers — Wèi Zhīxiù’s friend; see KR3ep017) opens “the dust-and-mist of fragmented antiquity — the wind of QíBó is silent and remote; the books of Sù and Líng are far indeed. Chéngzǐ Xìngxuān, of high penetration unmatched in the age, of refined thought beyond his peers, holds the poetic name of Pān and Lù [Pān Yuè, Lù Jī] and the medical art of Yú and Biǎn 俞扁 [Yú Fù 俞跗 and Biǎn Què 扁鵲]…“.
Abstract
Chéng Wényòu 程文囿 (zì Guāngzǔ 觀泉, hào Xìngxuān 杏軒) — Xīnān physician of the early nineteenth century, native of Shè 歙 (Ānhuī). CBDB has multiple Chéng Wényòu records (89952 with dates 1671–1733 is for a different person of the same name — note the catalog disambiguation; CBDB has no securely matched dates for the physician). Modern reference works (e.g., the Xīnān yījí cóngkān 新安醫籍叢刊 series, 1991–) date him approximately to c. 1761–1833, with the early Liú Quánzhī preface (1805) establishing his floruit in the Jiāqìng era. The composition window 1796–1833 reflects the appearance of the first series of the casebook in the late 1790s and Chéng’s working life through the early Dàoguāng era.
The casebook is the principal source for early-nineteenth-century Xīnān clinical practice and represents the regional Xīnān synthesis at the moment of its consolidation as a recognised lineage in Republican-era Chinese medical historiography (the Xīnān yīpài 新安醫派). Chéng also compiled a major theoretical compendium Yīshù 醫述 (1833), in 16 juǎn, drawing on hundreds of earlier medical sources and one of the most ambitious Qīng-period medical encyclopaedias.
Translations and research
For the Xīn-ān 新安 medical tradition see Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 196–203, and the modern Chinese Xīn-ān yī-pài historiography (Wáng Yǔ 王宇 et al., Xīn-ān yī-pài yán-jiū 新安醫派研究, 2010s).
Links
- Modern Chinese edition: Chéng Wényòu, Chéng Xìngxuān yīàn, ed. Zhāng Yùcái 張玉才, Rénmín Wèishēng Chūbǎnshè (1999).
- Kanseki DB
- 程杏軒醫案