Guīyàn lù 歸硯錄
Records of Bringing the Inkstone Home by 王士雄 Wáng Shìxióng (zì Mèngyīng 孟英, hào Bànchī 半癡, 1808–1868).
About the work
A four-juǎn late-life compilation by Wáng Shìxióng of clinical-theoretical observations, autobiographical reflections, and case-records, composed in 1855–1862 during the Tài-píng-war evacuation of Hángzhōu — the period in which Wáng moved his family from Hángzhōu first to the Hǎiníng 海寧 / Tíngxī 渟溪 rural retreat and then, after the 1860 Tàipíng fall of Hángzhōu, to Shànghǎi. The work’s title encodes Wáng’s ironic self-description as a man who has spent thirty years carrying “only an inkstone” (yàn 硯) — his medical practice being his livelihood — and is now “bringing the inkstone home” (guī yàn 歸硯) to his ancestral hamlet. The four juǎn mix clinical-doctrinal essays with personal memoir: extensive reflections on the Yáng-zhōu-region cholera epidemic of 1862 (which carried off many of Wáng’s friends, including the work’s collator Xú Yàzhī 徐亞枝); a substantial body of mature Wēnbìng-school clinical-theoretical statements that complement the great Wēnrè jīngwěi 溫熱經緯 (1852); and the affecting autobiographical sketch of Wáng’s flight from Hángzhōu, his temporary residence at Púyuàn 濮院, and the loss of the original Hángzhōu print-blocks of his ten medical works in the 1860 fire. The work is the principal source for Wáng’s late-life intellectual development and his clinical engagement with cholera (huòluàn 霍亂 / jiǎocháng shā 絞腸痧).
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text opens with multiple paratexts: a preface by Péng Lányuán 彭蘭媛 (a Hángzhōu / Rénhé female scholar, signed Bǐngchén sānyuè zhōnghuàn Rénhé Péng Lányuán 丙辰三月中浣仁和彭蘭媛 = 1856); Wáng Shìxióng’s self-preface signed Xiánfēng dīngsì dōng shíyī yuè xiàhuàn Ānhuà hòurén Nándù dì èrshíqī shì Bànchī Wáng Shìxióng shū yú Wúmén Guīzhào 咸豐丁巳冬十一月下浣安化後人南渡第二十七世半癡王士雄書於吳門歸棹 (eleventh month of Xiánfēng 7 = 1857, written on the homeward-bound boat at Wúmén / Sūzhōu) — a substantial autobiographical narrative recording his family origins in Ānhuà 安化 (Húnán), the family’s twelfth-century migration south to Yánguān 鹽官 / Hǎiníng, the further move to Hángzhōu under his great-grandfather’s generation in the Qiánlóng era, his own birth and impoverished childhood after his father’s death in 1821 (Dàoguāng 1) when Wáng was fourteen, his lifelong friendship with Xiè Zàihuá 謝再華 (a Hángzhōu salt-merchant friend who arranged Wáng’s 1855 relocation to Tíngxī through introduction of the Hǎiníng xiāngrén Guǎn Zhīshān 管芝山), and the work’s eventual completion in his Wúmén / Sūzhōu years; a set of poems by friends including Cáo Dàjīng 曹大經, Yuán Fèngtóng 袁鳳桐 (1857), Zhōu Zàisī 周在思 (1858), Zhāng Huá 章華 (1858), Zhào Mènglíng 趙夢齡 (1859), Hú Yàozēng 胡耀曾 (1860), and Dài Suìsūn 戴穗孫; and a closing **postface signed Tóngzhì yuánnián bāyuè Mèngyǐn yòu shū yú Shànghǎi zhī Suíxījū 同治元年八月夢隱又書於上海之隨息居 (eighth month of Tóngzhì 1 = 1862, signed at Shànghǎi Suíxījū) — Wáng’s heart-rending late-life addendum recording the deaths in the 1862 cholera epidemic of his collator Xú Yàzhī (whom Wáng had been counting on to revise the Huòluàn lùn 霍亂論 supplement), his patron Hú Róngfǔ, the poet friends Hǎichá 海槎 / Júzhāi 菊齋 / Èrjiāo 二郊, the thirty-one-year-old Yuán Fèngtóng (who died on the day his mother died), and the women contributors Péng and Zhāng — and concluding with the news that the Hángzhōu print-blocks of Wáng’s ten earlier medical works had likely been destroyed in the burning of Hángzhōu.
Abstract
Wáng Shìxióng’s Guīyàn lù is one of the most affecting documents of the Tài-píng-war medical-literary world — a personal memoir of evacuation, friendship-loss, and continued clinical practice during the most violent decade in nineteenth-century Chinese history. The composition window 1855–1862 reflects the documented start of the Tíngxī rural retreat and the Tóngzhì-1 (1862) Shànghǎi postface terminus, encompassing the full evacuation period. The work is also Wáng’s most explicit self-presentation, supplying the personal-family background that is missing from the more impersonal Wēnrè jīngwěi (1852) and the case-record compilations.
Clinical importance: the Guīyàn lù incorporates Wáng’s most mature reflections on cholera (huòluàn / jiǎocháng shā 絞腸痧), continuing the work of his earlier Huòluàn lùn (1838, with revisions through 1862). The 1862 cholera pandemic was the second major nineteenth-century wave (after the 1820–1822 first wave), and Wáng’s clinical observations remain among the principal Chinese-language sources for its impact on the Lower Yangtze. The work also preserves Wáng’s late-life engagement with Jīn Bùzhāi 金簠齋 (Jīn Wénzhōng’s elder brother / family member of KR3eq006 preface-writer), with whom Wáng struck up an affecting Shànghǎi exile friendship in mid-1862 that lasted only a few weeks before Jīn’s death from the cholera.
For Wáng’s biographical and doctrinal profile see person note 王士雄. The 1855–1862 evacuation period is the latest phase of his career and the immediate prelude to his Shànghǎi exile death (1868).
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Guīyàn lù located. Wáng’s Wēnrè jīngwěi and Huòluàn lùn are treated in Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011), ch. 5. For the Tàipíng-war medical-literary world see Tobie Meyer-Fong, What Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19th-Century China (Stanford, 2013).
Links
- Wáng Shìxióng (zh)
- Tàipíng-war evacuation context: Meyer-Fong 2013.
- Kanseki DB
- 歸硯錄 (jicheng.tw)