Chóngshítáng yīàn 崇實堂醫案
Medical Case Records of the Hall of Honoring Substance by 姚龍光 Yáo Lóngguāng (Yànrú 晏如, 1860s–early Republican), of Dāntú 丹徒 (Zhènjiāng, Jiāngsū).
About the work
A single-juǎn late-Qīng casebook of the scholar-physician Yáo Lóngguāng (字 Yànrú 晏如), a míngjīng 明經 (lower-academy graduate) of Dāntú 丹徒. Yáo was the younger brother of the major Qīng official 姚錫光 Yáo Xīguāng (號 Shíquán 石荃), a jǔrén who served as guānchá (intendant / circuit-supervisor) in the northern capital region.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries three prefaces:
- The Wángxù 王序 by 王之春 Wáng Zhīchūn of Qīngquán 清泉 — preface-writer, a high official. Wáng describes his unsuccessful 20-year search for a great Dāntú scholar to recommend, eventually meeting Yáo Xīguāng during his fǔWǎn (intendancy of Ānhuī) — and discovering through Yáo Xīguāng his younger brother Yáo Lóngguāng’s casebook. The preface frames Yáo Lóngguāng’s project as a Qīng reform-era attempt to zhènxìng yīxué 振興醫學 (revitalize medicine) and create “medical schools and medical journals” to compare Chinese medicine with Western statistical-population-health methods.
- Yáo Lóngguāng’s zìxù 自序 (self-preface) dated Guāngxù èrshíqī nián bā yuè (August 1901), signed Jiāngsū Dāntúxiàn Dāncóngzhèn Yànrúshì Yáo Lóngguāng jǐn zì jì yú Hézhōu guānshǔ 江蘇丹徒縣丹從鎮晏如氏姚龍光謹自記於和州官署. Yáo describes his medical autobiography: he was raised on classical learning and mathematics, became chronically ill at age 27 from yángxū (yang-deficiency) with cough-phlegm-fatigue-weight-loss, was nearly killed by routine qínlián (Scutellaria-Coptis) cooling-cleansing prescribing, vowed to study medicine “to benefit self and others, and never to fall into the bad habits of contemporary physicians.” Through study and self-experimentation he mastered Shānghán, Jīnguì, and the Yè-school wēnbìng canon — what he calls the “three great gateways” of medicine. His critique of the contemporary medical profession is unusually sharp and develops a sustained diagnosis of three professional vices: (1) defensive vagueness, (2) cookbook prescribing, (3) deferential bedside manner.
- A third xù 序 (by an unnamed colleague) reframes the Yáo brothers in the bùwéi liángxiàng zé wéi liángyī 不為良相則為良醫 tradition (范仲淹 Fàn Zhòngyān’s dictum).
Abstract
Yáo Lóngguāng 姚龍光 (CBDB 360115, c. 1731 index-year — but this is the CBDB-internal-index date, not a confirmed lifedate; the actual physician of the Chóngshítáng is identified by his 1901 self-preface), zì Yànrú 晏如, of Dāncóngzhèn 丹從鎮 in Dāntú 丹徒 (Zhènjiāng, Jiāngsū). A míngjīng (lower-academy graduate) who turned to medicine after self-failure of contemporary practitioners. His clinical signature is synthetic six-channel + warm-disease with a strong reform-era methodological orientation.
The casebook is unusual in the KR3ep series for its reformist late-Qīng programmatic voice — Yáo argues for the establishment of Chinese-medical schools and journals to compete with Western medical statistics, and his self-preface anticipates the Republican-era medical-institutional reform project. Wáng Zhīchūn’s preface explicitly forecasts a future “Xīshǐ (Western-style history) record-style” of medical-statistical achievement attributed to the Yáo brothers’ reform legacy.
The composition window 1880–1901 brackets the documented clinical period and the dated 1901 self-preface.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Contemporary Zhènjiāng / Dāntú medical milieu: KR3ep060 Lǐ Guànxiān yīàn, KR3ep076, KR3ep077 Wáng Jiǔfēng yīàn.
- Kanseki DB
- 崇實堂醫案