Xù yī shuō 續醫說
Continuation of the Discourses on Medicine by 俞弁 Yú Biàn (zì Zǐróng 子容, mid-Míng Sūzhōu 蘇州 physician-scholar), self-consciously continuing the late-Sòng 張杲 KR3eq024 Yī shuō 醫說 of c. 1224.
About the work
A ten-juǎn mid-Míng continuation of the late-Sòng Zhāng Gǎo Yī shuō — Yú Biàn’s deliberate extension of Zhāng’s pioneering medical-anecdote-and-case-record compilation to incorporate the JīnYuán Four Masters synthesis and the early-Míng experience that Zhāng could not have known. The editorial method follows Zhāng Gǎo: classified anecdotes, biographical sketches of physicians, doctrinal observations, materia-medica notes, and case-records assembled from earlier sources with Yú’s running annotations. The work’s principal historiographical interest lies in its evidence for mid-Míng medical-bibliographical practice — Yú was a notable bǐjì compiler in addition to his medical practice, and his editorial method draws on the cílèi / zájì mid-Míng reference-work tradition associated with the Wáng Yíng 王應 family-press circle in Sūzhōu. The work is preserved in mid-Míng prints (the Mǎnzhì 1 / 1658 Japanese Edo-era recension is the principal late-Míng-to-Edo transmission) and was digitised by jicheng.tw from a Japanese-preserved exemplar.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text opens with paratextual material at the end of the work: a postface by 黃省曾 Huáng Shěngzēng (hào Wǔyuè shānrén 五嶽山人) dated Jiājìng gēngyín wǔyuè 嘉靖庚寅五月 (= 1530, fifth month), with the famous formulation that “today’s commanderies and prefectures hardly produce any high physicians” attributed to the corruption of the yīzhě shèngzhì zhī cháng shénmíng zhī shì 醫者聖智之長神明之事 ideal of medical practice (“the longer-and-more-illuminated work of the shèngzhì”) by the modern reduction of medicine to merely a livelihood; and a postface by 陸粲 Lù Càn (hào Shífān shānrén 石帆山人) dated Dīngyǒu qiūrì 丁酉秋日 (= 1537, autumn day) — Lù’s evaluation of Yú as “exceptionally widely-read” (Yújūn cǐbiān shòujù gāibó 俞君此編授據該博) and as “the only one of his contemporaries” in mid-Míng Sūzhōu medicine. The Japanese Edo cut adds Mǎnzhì yuánnián wùxū zhòngdōng gǔdàn 萬治元年戊戌仲冬穀旦 = 1658 to the colophon.
Abstract
Yú Biàn 俞弁 (Zǐróng), mid-Míng Sūzhōu physician-scholar, is the principal continuator of the Zhāng Gǎo Yī shuō tradition. The catalog meta dates him conventionally as Míng; the composition window 1530–1537 reflects (a) the Jiājìng gēngyín Huáng Shěngzēng postface and (b) the Dīngyǒu Lù Càn postface. Yú is documented as a contemporary of the Sūzhōu literary-medical circle including Huáng Shěngzēng (1490–1540, a major literary scholar and 王守仁 Wáng Shǒurén discipular figure) and Lù Càn (1494–1551, a jìnshì of Jiājìng 5 / 1526 and Sūzhōu antiquarian) — both of whom were senior literary scholars who took Yú seriously as a medical-bibliographer.
Historiographical significance: the Xù yī shuō is one of the more useful mid-Míng yīshuō / yīhuà-precursor works for documenting the transmission of JīnYuán Four Masters’ doctrine into mid-Míng Sūzhōu medical practice — the period in which the Wúyī 吳醫 (Sūzhōu) medical tradition was being established as the dominant regional center. The Huáng Shěngzēng postface’s complaint about the mid-Míng decline of high medicine (jīn yǐ fēngjiā “now [physicians] use [their art] to provide for their families”, contrasted with the ancient gǔ yǐ míngshì “the ancients used [it] to make themselves famous in the world”) is an important early signal of the late-Míng / Qīng debate about commercialised medical practice. CBDB does not record Yú Biàn.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Xù yī shuō located. The work is treated in modern Chinese medical-bibliographical references including the Zhōngguó yījí dàcídiǎn 中國醫籍大辭典 (Shànghǎi císhū chūbǎnshè, 2002).
Links
- Lù Càn (1494–1551) — Jiājìng-era Sūzhōu antiquarian / preface-writer.
- Kanseki DB
- 續醫說 (jicheng.tw)