Qiānlǐ yīàn 千里醫案
Medical Case Records of Qiān-lǐ by 張千里 Zhāng Qiānlǐ (late-Qiánlóng to Dàoguāng period), of Tóngxiāng 桐鄉 (Zhèjiāng).
About the work
A four-juǎn manuscript-recovery casebook of the renowned mid-Qīng Tóngxiāng physician Zhāng Qiānlǐ (字 Qiānlǐ 千里, xuébó 學博 honorific = district education-supervisor level). The text was recovered from a Sūzhōu used-bookstall in the Dàoguāng period by 凌詠 Líng Yǒng (號 Yǒngyán Yīsǒu 永言醫叟)‘s father, preserved in the family travel-trunk for decades, and finally published in 1920 as part of an organised “Yuèzhōng [Zhèjiāng] medical community” salvage of provincial physicians’ lost manuscripts.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries a bá (跋, postface) signed gēngshēn chūnhòu xué Wúxīng Líng Yǒng Yǒngyán Yīsǒu jǐn bá yú Hùbīn Shàngsùxuān fǔjū (1920 spring, signed by Líng Yǒng of Wúxīng, “the Yǒngyán Old-Medical-Man,” at his Shànghǎi riverside studio). The postface describes a long personal connection: in his childhood (jìlíng 髻齡) Líng heard his great-grandfather 許雷門 Xǔ Léimén and 汪謝城 Wāng Xièchéng praise Zhāng Qiānlǐ as the greatest Zhèjiāng physician of his time; his uncle Xiǎowǔ 曉五 served as Zhāng’s bedside-attendant for ten years. Líng’s father had acquired the manuscript while serving as a legal-secretary for the official Zhāng Gōng 張公 at Xiùshuǐ 秀水 county.
The postface contains a famous extended analogy between Zhāng Qiānlǐ’s medical-practice and river-management: the postface-writer Líng Yǒng, after a career in Shāndōng and Yùhuái 豫淮 (Hénán / Anhuī) river-engineering, observes that “to clear what is blocked, dredge to drain; to mend what is sunken, pack-and-pound earth to fill” — exactly Zhāng’s medical method translated to hydraulics.
The colophon contains a poignant note: Líng was “in his old age, vital force daily declining” (詠肉帛逾年精力日衰) when he agreed to surrender the manuscript to 裘吉生 Qiú Jíshēng of Yuèzhōng for printed publication; the publication was framed as bǎocún guócuì 保存國粹 (“preserving the national essence”) — a Republican-period anti-imperial-medical-vacuum cultural-preservation gesture.
Abstract
Zhāng Qiānlǐ 張千里 (字 Qiānlǐ, fl. late Qiánlóng to Dàoguāng), of Tóngxiāng 桐鄉 (Zhèjiāng). Renowned in his time as the leading Zhèjiāng physician; the postface notes that he was so widely respected that “he was held up as an exemplar for younger physicians.” His original given-name is not securely identified in the present text. He held a xuébó (district education-supervisor) honorific, indicating gòngshēng status.
The composition window 1780–1840 brackets a likely late-Qiánlóng to Dàoguāng clinical career. Note: The casebook contains a particularly famous case in which Zhāng treated Sūn Wénchénggōng 孫文成公 of Wúxī for zhǒng (swelling), counselling that the patient stop using “grass medicines” (草藥) and instead use his own body as a “river-dyke” of bǎoyǎng prevention — a memorable instance of what Líng Yǒng calls Zhāng’s zhèngyī shàngyī (政醫上醫) “physician-as-statesman” voice.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Yuèzhōng salvage publication network: contemporary Líng Yǒng’s other recoveries.
- Kanseki DB
- 千里醫案