Yè Tiānshì yīàn jīnghuá 葉天士醫案精華
Quintessence of Yè Tiānshì’s Medical Case Records cases by 葉桂 Yè Guì 葉桂 (Tiānshì 天士, 1666–1745); selected by late-Qīng / Republican-era editors.
About the work
A single-juǎn selective anthology of Yè Tiānshì cases, drawn principally from the KR3ep010 Línzhèng zhǐnán yīàn with editorial reorganisation and shortening. The work belongs to the late-Qīng / early-Republican genre of jīnghuá 精華 (“quintessence”, “essential”) teaching anthologies — a format that emerges as Chinese medicine begins to be taught in formal schools and requires compact study editions of the major classical casebooks.
The hxwd _000.txt opens with a Zhōngfēng 中風 (stroke / wind-strike) case in the classical Yè format: “This year wind-wood occupies the celestial pole; in the spring and summer season of yáng ascendance, combined with the patient’s habitual nùláo yōusī 怒勞憂思 (rage-overwork-worry-thought), the qì-and-fire of the five zhì 志 (intentions) coincide upward; the internal wind of the liver and gallbladder stirs and circulates. With shàngshèng 上盛 (above-replete) comes xiàxū 下虛 (below-deficient): hence the loss of strength in foot and knee. The internal wind of liver-wood with strong-fire invades and overcomes the stomach-earth; the stomach governs flesh, and the channels respond to limbs and ring out around the mouth — hence numbness of lips and tongue, limbs and joints like wěi 痿 (atrophy-disorder), all incipient zhōngjué 中厥 (stroke-reversal). Observing Liú Héjiān’s 劉完素 doctrine of internal-fire summoning wind, one uses bitter-descending and acrid-discharging, with a sparing assistance of slight sour — most concordant with the canonical intention. Cut its upward-galloping power so that the clear empty orifices not be obscured by turbid phlegm and strong fire — this is the balance of medical practice. As for the cultivation of yíyǎng 頤養 (nurture), and the warming-and-cooling preservation, more attention should be paid even before the medicinal substances. Jīn shíhú 金石斛, huà júhóng 化橘紅, běi qínpí 北秦皮, cǎo juémíng 草決明, dōng sāngyè 冬桑葉, bái jílí 白蒺藜, nèn gōuténg 嫩鉤藤, shēng báisháo 生白芍.” This case is a paradigmatic Yè Tiānshì gānfēng nèidòng 肝風內動 (internal stirring of liver-wind) presentation and is one of the most-anthologised of all Yè cases.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens directly with the Zhōngfēng case without any preceding preface. No preface in _000.txt. The editorial framing of the selection is implicit: the very title jīnghuá announces the work as a study-anthology.
Abstract
For Yè Tiānshì’s biographical and clinical background see 葉桂. This jīnghuá anthology represents the early-twentieth-century reception of the Yè canon as a compact teaching text suitable for the new medical-school curricula of the post-1916 Shànghǎi Zhōngyī Zhuānmén Xuéxiào and similar institutions. The composition window 1900–1930 reflects the late-Qīng / early-Republican origin of this teaching format. The hxwd reprint follows an early-Republican Shànghǎi edition.
The work is the most widely-circulated of the Línzhèng zhǐnán derivatives and is one of the principal vehicles through which Yè Tiānshì’s clinical thought was carried into modern Chinese-medical pedagogy.
Translations and research
For Yè Tiānshì see Hanson 2011 and Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 196–203.