Jīngfāng shíyàn lù 經方實驗錄
Record of Classical-Formula Empirical Verification by 曹穎甫 Cáo Yǐngfǔ (1866–1937), as compiled and annotated by his disciple 姜佐景 Jiāng Zuǒjǐng (1896–1968).
About the work
A three-juǎn casebook documenting the clinical practice of Cáo Yǐngfǔ, the principal twentieth-century Shànghǎi master of the classical-formula school (經方派) — the Republican-period revival of strict Shānghán lùn / Jīnguì yàolüè prescribing in self-conscious opposition to the dominant Yè-school wēnbìng tradition. The compilation was prepared by Cáo’s senior disciple Jiāng Zuǒjǐng, who added critical ànyǔ (按語) to each case, “with blood-spilling effort and brain-juicing toil, over several years’ winters and summers.” The work was published in installments from 1937.
Prefaces
The _000.txt opens with a postface (跋) signed 培生 Péishēng, praising Cáo as “the contemporary southern Yáng [Zhòngjǐng] grandee” and his disciple Jiāng as one who has joined the “Nányáng school” (a literary epithet for Shānghán lùn classicism). The postface explicitly attacks the late-Qīng tendency toward qīngdàn (light-aromatic) prescribing and argues for Cáo’s classical-formula methodology as the proper Chinese-medical resistance to Western-medical scientism.
Abstract
Cáo Yǐngfǔ 曹穎甫, míng Jiādá 家達, zì Yǐngfǔ 穎甫, hào Bùcháo 不巢, 1866–1937, native of Jiāngyīn 江陰 (Jiāngsū). A late-Qīng jǔrén who turned to medicine in middle age, he established a Shànghǎi clinical practice in the 1920s and rose to prominence as the principal twentieth-century proponent of strict Shānghán lùn classicism in the JiāngZhè / Shànghǎi medical milieu. He served as president of the Shànghǎi Chinese-Medical School (上海中醫專門學校) and was killed by Japanese soldiers during the 1937 Nánjīng / Yangtze invasion.
The Jīngfāng shíyàn lù is the principal documentary record of Cáo’s clinical practice, and includes Jiāng Zuǒjǐng’s expansive critical apparatus that places each case in the Shānghán / Jīnguì prescription-tradition. The text was foundational for the modern revival of jīngfāng (classical-formula) prescribing in the second half of the twentieth century in China, Taiwan, and Japan, and remains the single most-cited Republican-era casebook.
Translations and research
Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 226–231. Scheid, Volker. 2007. Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006. Eastland Press — substantial coverage of Cáo Yǐngfǔ and the Republican-era classical-formula school. Wiseman, Nigel and Andy Ellis. Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine. Paradigm Publications — uses Jīngfāng shíyàn lù cases as English-language teaching specimens.
Links
- Contemporary Republican classicist works: KR3ep068 Dùnyuán yīàn by Xiāo Zhuórú.
- Yè-school counter-tradition: KR3ep059 Wáng Zhòngqí yīàn, KR3ep024 Dīng Gānrén yīàn.
- Kanseki DB
- 經方實驗錄