Wángshì yīàn sānbiān 王氏醫案三編
Medical Case Records of Wáng, Third Series by 王士雄 Wáng Shìxióng (Mèngyīng 孟英, 1808–1868), compiled by his disciple 徐亞枝 Xú Yàzhī.
About the work
A four-juǎn third installment in the Wángshì yīàn trilogy, completing the documentary record of Wáng Mèngyīng’s clinical practice. Compiled by his disciple Xú Yàzhī 徐亞枝.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries a Chóngkān 重刊 (“re-print”) preface. The re-printing preface argues that the existence of disease implies the existence of cure: with small illnesses the body’s own zàngqì has the resistive power to recover spontaneously, but with serious illness the differential between cold-vs-heat and deficiency-vs-excess prescribing is life-or-death — and at such moments multiple physicians at one consultation will offer conflicting prescriptions, producing the patient’s death by indecision. The preface cites 俞桂庭 Yú Guìtíng’s dictum “medical principle is deep and subtle; of one hundred who study it, ten will succeed; of those, one will master it” — and frames Wáng Mèngyīng as that one in a hundred.
Abstract
This volume continues the Wángshì yīàn documentary project; specifically it covers cases from the late-Tàipíng / post-Tàipíng period (after Wáng’s relocation to Shànghǎi in the early 1860s) up to his death in 1868. The compilation was completed in the late 1860s or early 1870s by his disciple Xú Yàzhī, who later also assisted Wáng Mèngyīng in preserving the manuscript of KR3ep072 Gǔjīn yīàn àn xuǎn through the Jiāngxī Tàipíng disturbances.
The composition window 1860–1868 brackets the late clinical period documented in the cases.
Translations and research
Hanson, Marta. 2011. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge. Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 224–226.