得心集醫案

Déxīnjí yīàn 得心集醫案

Medical Case Records — Collection of Heart-Attainments by 謝星煥 Xiè Xīnghuàn 謝星煥 (zì Yìnglú 映廬, 1788–1855), of Fēngchéng 豐城 in Jiāngxī; edited and prepared for print by his son 謝甘澍 Xiè Gānshù 謝甘澍 (mid-nineteenth century).

About the work

A six-juǎn casebook of the Jiāngxī Fēngchéng physician Xiè Yìnglú (Xiè Xīnghuàn), edited posthumously by his son Xiè Gānshù — assisted by Xiè’s pupil Liú Shàojī 劉紹基 — and published in the disturbed years of the Tàipíng war (the colophons mention the bīnggē rǎorǎng 兵戈擾攘, “the troubling agitations of weapons and shields”, around the time of publication). The title — Déxīn jí “Heart-Attainment Collection” — programmatically frames the work as a record of clinical results-attained-by-the-heart in the tradition of the yīzhě yì yě 醫者意也 (“medicine is intention”) line of 喻昌 Yú Jiāyán KR3ep012.

Prefaces

The hxwd _000.txt opens with a long Bá yī 跋一 (first colophon) by the pupil Liú Shàojī 劉紹基: “From the time I was a young man of twenty I received instruction at the gate of Master Yìnglú; I learned the Master’s learning, made my heart the Master’s heart — it was proper that I should have something to transmit on the Master’s behalf. But my nature was dull, and from youth to maturity, I attained nothing. With the Master’s death, my learning grew more and more empty, my heart more and more closed; it was no less than placing myself outside the gate. Last year the Third Master Xìngyuán 杏園 [Xiè Gānshù] gathered and compiled the Master’s medical cases, and entrusted the copying-and-recording to me. I both rejoiced that the Master’s medical learning could be perpetuated in transmission, and also that the Third Brother had carried out the inheritance, with something to comfort the Master in the underworld. So I worked diligently at the studio-mat, exhausting two years of effort; where the writing was faded and difficult to make out, I worked at adding and supplementing, with eight drafts before the book was complete. Alas — that the Master’s medical learning is so refined, and his treatment-results so divine, and that we have, in this time of agitating weapons and shields, completed the book to transmit it to posterity — this we may call Heaven’s deep love for our Master — and surely not only for our Master alone.” The colophon is followed by Bá èr 跋二 (second colophon) — and others — which the hxwd file _000.txt includes.

Abstract

Xiè Xīnghuàn 謝星煥 (zì Yìnglú 映廬, 1788–1855) — Jiāngxī Fēngchéng 豐城 physician of the early-to-mid nineteenth century. He came from a literati background and combined a regional medical practice with classical-literary cultivation; his teaching attracted pupils across the Jiāngxī region, including Liú Shàojī 劉紹基 who supplies the principal colophon. His son Xiè Gānshù 謝甘澍 (whose hào was Xìngyuán 杏園, the same as Xiè Yìnglú’s studio name — implying continuation of the same studio) prepared the casebook for print after his father’s death. The composition window 1788–1855 reflects Xiè Xīnghuàn’s lifespan; the editorial preparation and printing followed in the 1860s during the Tàipíng disturbances.

The work is the principal documentary source for early-to-mid nineteenth-century Jiāngxī medical practice and one of relatively few well-edited casebooks from the Jiāngxī region (which is otherwise less prolific in the yīàn literature than the Jiāngnán heartland). Xiè Xīnghuàn is conventionally treated as the principal Jiāngxī Fēngchéng family-medicine founder.

Translations and research

No substantial European-language secondary literature located. The work is treated in modern Chinese regional Jiāngxī medical histories.

Links

• Modern Chinese edition: Xiè Xīnghuàn, Déxīn jí yīàn, ed. Yú Yìngào 余瀛鰲 et al., Rénmín Wèishēng Chūbǎnshè, 1980s.
• Kanseki DB
• 得心集醫案