Yěshì Shānrén yīàn 也是山人醫案
Medical Case Records of the ‘Also-So’ Mountain Recluse by Yěshì Shānrén 也是山人 (“the ‘Also-So’ Mountain Recluse” — a pseudonymous mid-Qīng Jiāngnán physician), 也是山人.
About the work
A single-juǎn clinical casebook by an anonymous mid-Qīng Jiāngnán physician writing under the pseudonym Yěshì Shānrén 也是山人 (“the Also-So Mountain Recluse”). The casebook opens with classical zhōngfēng 中風 / fèizhōng 痱中 (deep-stroke) cases in a markedly Yè Tiānshì-influenced clinical idiom — “Sū (51 years): liver and kidney long depleted, internal wind invading the channels, pulse-image slow-large, limbs numb, tongue stiff and speech impeded. This belongs to the fèizhōng form. The yīn qì does not govern its upward bearing; one should heavily nurture the lower, with aux iliary wind-quenching. Shúdì 4 qián, dàn cōngróng 3, shā jílí 2, qīng ējiāo 2, qǐzǐ 2, huáng gānjú 1, fúshén 2” — making clear that the author was a working clinician of the post-Yè Tiānshì Sūzhōu tradition.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens directly with case material; no preface precedes it. No preface preserved in source.
Abstract
The identity of Yěshì Shānrén 也是山人 is uncertain. The pseudonym is one of several adopted by Qīng-period Jiāngnán physicians (compare similar Daoist-style shānrén 山人 “mountain-man” pseudonyms used by Yè Tiānshì himself — Shàngjīn lǎorén 上津老人 — and by various successors). Some modern Chinese reference works identify the author as a disciple or near-contemporary of Yè Tiānshì writing in the early-to-mid nineteenth century; others (including the catalog meta’s dynasty assignment 清) leave the identification open. The internal clinical style — heavy use of shúdì 熟地, cōngróng 蓯蓉, jílí 蒺藜, ējiāo 阿膠, qǐzǐ 枸杞, gānjú 甘菊, fúshén 茯神 in the fèizhōng prescription, and the systematic gānfēng nèidòng / gānqì framework — places the author firmly in the post-Yè Tiānshì Sūzhōu wēnbìng tradition of the mid-Qīng to mid-nineteenth century. The composition window 1820–1880 reflects this conventional placement.
The work circulated only in manuscript through the late Qīng and was repatriated through the hxwd project from a Japanese collection. As a witness to mid-Qīng Sūzhōu clinical practice the casebook is one of several useful but unspecific documents of the post-Yè Tiānshì line.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located on this anonymous casebook. For the broader Sūzhōu post-Yè tradition see Hanson 2011 and Hinrichs and Barnes 2013.