Xīnyī jí 心醫集
The Heart-Medicine Collection by 祝登元 Zhù Dēngyuán, early-to-mid Qīng physician of the Shùnzhì / Kāngxī era.
About the work
A two-juǎn compendium of medical-theoretical reflections in the yīhuà tradition by Zhù Dēngyuán, with the distinguishing feature that the work integrates classical Confucian xīnxué 心學 (mind-learning) categories into clinical reasoning. The title’s xīnyī 心醫 (“heart-medicine” or “mind-medicine”) refers both to the technical clinical category — the treatment of disorders that emerge primarily from the xīn 心 (heart-mind) organ-channel — and to the meta-theoretical principle that the physician’s xīn (cognitive and emotional disposition) is the principal instrument of clinical practice. The work belongs to the early-Qīng synthesis between xīnxué Neo-Confucian moral psychology and classical Chinese medicine that is also documented in 喻昌 Yú Jiāyán’s Yīmén fǎlǜ 醫門法律 (1658) and 李中梓 Lǐ Zhōngzǐ’s Yīzōng bìdú 醫宗必讀 (1637).
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text carries the standard front-matter prefaces of the work; the standard print recensions preserve a Kāngxī-era zìxù (author’s self-preface) and supplementary prefaces by Zhù’s Shùnzhì / Kāngxī-era medical-literary circle.
Abstract
Zhù Dēngyuán 祝登元 is not heavily documented in standard reference works; the catalog meta dates him conventionally to the Qīng. Internal evidence — the xīnxué engagement, the integration with the 喻昌 / 李中梓 Wú-region (Lower Yangtze) clinical-doctrinal synthesis, the absence of references to mature Qīng kǎozhèng — places the work in the early-to-mid Qīng (Shùnzhì 1644 — Kāngxī 61 = 1722). The composition window 1644–1722 reflects this bracket.
The work’s historiographical interest is as an example of the early-Qīng xīnyī (mind-medicine) sub-tradition that did not establish itself as a major continuing school but represents a methodologically distinctive synthesis between Neo-Confucian psychology and classical clinical practice. The work entered modern Chinese circulation through the jicheng.tw digitisation. Not in CBDB.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation located. For the broader early-Qīng xīnxué / clinical-practice integration see Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (UC Berkeley, 1999).