Huíxī yīàn 洄溪醫案
Medical Case Records of Huíxī (Xú Dàchūn) by 徐大椿 Xú Dàchūn (Língtāi 靈胎, hào Huíxī 洄溪, 1693–1771), of Wújiāng 吳江; edited by 王士雄 Wáng Mèngyīng (1808–1868).
About the work
A single-juǎn casebook of the great mid-Qīng Wújiāng Shānghán-classicist physician Xú Dàchūn (hào Huíxī 洄溪, “the Returning Stream”), recovered from manuscript by Wáng Mèngyīng in 1855 and edited for publication with Wáng’s commentary. This is the principal documentary record of Xú Dàchūn’s clinical practice.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries a preface signed Xiánfēng wǔ nián suìcì yǐmǎo shí yuè Hǎichāng hòuxué Wáng Shìxióng (Wáng Mèngyīng, Xiánfēng 5 = October 1855). The preface describes how 袁枚 Yuán Méi (Yuán Jiǎnzhāi 袁簡齋) had attempted to record “extraordinary prescriptions and unusual techniques” in his Biography of Master Língtāi but found such records “unobtainable in the rush,” resulting in only a few cases (those of 迮耕石 Zé Gēngshí and 汪令聞 Wāng Lìngwén) “with the language insufficient.” In summer 1855 Wáng received the manuscript from his colleague 呂慎庵 Lǚ Shènān, who had obtained it via Xú Dàchūn’s disciple 金復村 Jīn Fùcūn. Wáng describes his joy: “I read it as one who has obtained the great treasure; though a secret manuscript and the prescriptions not fully detailed, yet its piercing of vital tissues and its god-and-ghost-arranged skill is sufficient to set the standard and save the multitudes.”
Abstract
Xú Dàchūn 徐大椿 (1693–1771), zì Língtāi 靈胎 (also Língtài 靈台), hào Huíxī Lǎorén 洄溪老人, of Wújiāng 吳江 (Jiāngsū). One of the most important Qīng medical-philosophical writers and the leading mid-Qīng critic of the late-Míng / early-Qīng wēnbǔ (warming-tonifying) school. His principal works include Yīxué yuánliú lùn 醫學源流論 (KR3e0100, Treatise on the Sources and Development of Medicine, 1757) — a foundational philosophical-medical critique — and his famous 批臨證指南 Pī Línzhèng zhǐnán, a sharp critical annotation of 葉天士 Yè Tiānshì’s casebook.
The first case opens with a Gēmén 葑門 (East-Sūzhōu) gentleman surnamed Jīn 金 suddenly struck by an èfēng (wind-stroke). The contemporary physicians had used Rénshēn / Guì / Fù (ginseng-cinnamon-aconite) prescriptions — Xú’s signature targets for criticism. Xú deploys “wind-dispelling, phlegm-dissolving, fire-clearing” prescriptions; warns the family that if his three doses do not “wake the patient and restore eating, then any further drug is unnecessary” — and is proved right. The principle invoked is the Nèijīng doctrine of xūxié (虛邪) — Pernicious-wind operating on a constitutionally-weakened patient, which Xú treats not by warming-tonifying but by xīnliáng (cooling-acrid) plus gānwēn (sweet-warming) — “the Nèijīng has clear instruction.”
The composition window 1720–1855 brackets Xú’s clinical career (the first case is undated but contextually from the 1740s–1760s) through Wáng’s 1855 editorial assembly. Wáng’s appended commentary is also significant in its own right as a Wáng-Mèngyīng-school reading of an earlier classical-formula master.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located for the casebook specifically. Xú Dàchūn is generally treated in Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 192–198, and at length in Unschuld, Forgotten Traditions of Ancient Chinese Medicine (1990), which translates Xú’s Yīxué yuánliú lùn.
Links
- Disciple’s casebook: KR3ep076, KR3ep077 Wáng Jiǔfēng yīàn.
- Annotated Huíxī edition with Wáng’s commentary: KR3ep088 Huíxī yīàn àn.
- Kanseki DB
- 洄溪醫案