Yī biān 醫砭
The Medical Lance (Stone-Tip Reproof for the Physicians) by 徐大椿 Xú Dàchūn (Língtāi 靈胎, 1693–1771) — originally composed in 1767 as the Shènjí chúyán 慎疾芻言 (Words-of-Caution-from-the-Stable) — re-edited and renamed by 王士雄 Wáng Shìxióng (Mèngyīng 孟英, 1808–1868) in 1850.
About the work
A one-juǎn polemical-clinical handbook — Wáng Shìxióng’s 1850 reissue of Xú Dàchūn’s 1767 Shènjí chúyán under the more pointed title Yī biān (“Medical Lance” — biān 砭 being the classical stone-tip needle used in pre-acupuncture lancing). Wáng’s editorial framing (recorded in the 1850 self-preface signed at Guìxī 貴溪) makes the rationale explicit: Xú’s original title chúyán 芻言 (“words-from-the-stable”) was a self-deprecating gesture; the work’s actual content is a vigorous reproof of contemporary medical practice. Wáng cites the precedent of Xú’s own earlier Yīguàn biān 醫貫砭 (“Lance against the Yīguàn”) which had targeted 趙獻可 Zhào Xiànkě’s Yīguàn warming-tonifying programme; the present Yī biān extends that critical project to yī zhī tōngbìng 醫之通病 — the general diseases of physicians themselves. The compilation includes 袁枚 Yuán Méi’s Xú Língtāi xiānshēng zhuàn 徐靈胎先生傳 (Biography of Mr. Xú Língtāi) as the principal biographical frame, Xú’s own yuányǐn 原引 (original introduction) of 1767, and the topical doctrinal essays organised around: warming-tonifying excesses (bǔjì 補劑), inappropriate drug-use (yòngyào 用藥), specific disease-categories (zhōngfēng 中風, késòu 咳嗽, tǔxuè 吐血, zhōngshǔ 中暑, lìjí 痢疾, etc.), and women’s-and-children’s medicine. Wáng’s editorial annotations (Wáng àn 王按 / Xióng àn 雄按) appear throughout, supplementing Xú’s positions with mid-nineteenth-century clinical updates.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text opens with Wáng Shìxióng’s self-preface signed Dàoguāng sānshí nián gēngxū chūn èryuè Hángzhōu Wáng Shìxióng shū yú Guìxī zhōucì 道光三十年庚戌春二月杭州王士雄書於貴溪舟次 (= second month of Dàoguāng 30 = April 1850, written on a boat at Guìxī) — recording his collaboration with the Wūdì 無棣 physician 張柳吟 Zhāng Liǔyín in the rewriting of Xú’s Shènjí chúyán under the new title Yī biān; followed by 袁枚 Yuán Méi’s Xú Língtāi xiānshēng zhuàn 徐靈胎先生傳 (the standard mid-Qīng biographical source for Xú); followed by Xú’s own yuányǐn 原引 of Qiánlóng dīnghài qiū qīyuè qiǎorì 乾隆丁亥秋七月巧日 = autumn 1767 (i.e. Qiánlóng 32).
Abstract
Xú Dàchūn’s Shènjí chúyán of 1767 is one of his late-life polemical works — a sustained reproof of contemporary medical practice from the perspective of the kǎojù yīxué programme he had founded a decade earlier with KR3eq011 Yīxué yuánliú lùn (1757). Wáng Shìxióng’s 1850 re-edition under the title Yī biān gave the work a sharper polemical edge and integrated mid-nineteenth-century Wēnbìng-school updates. The composition window 1767–1850 reflects the two-stage history: Xú’s original composition (1767) and Wáng’s re-edition (1850). The work entered modern Chinese circulation through the jicheng.tw digitisation.
Doctrinal significance: the Yī biān is the most-cited mid-Qīng polemical-clinical handbook for the kǎojù yīxué programme’s critical engagement with contemporary medical practice. Xú’s central target — the routine over-prescription of warming-tonifying drugs without proper yīn-deficiency diagnosis — is one of the most consequential medical-pedagogical interventions of the eighteenth century. Wáng Shìxióng’s 1850 re-edition extends the critique to mid-nineteenth-century Jiāngnán practice (the famous WángShìxióng analysis of 1849 cholera and the juézhèng 厥證 controversy is integrated into the Yī biān annotations).
Translations and research
The underlying Shènjí chúyán of Xú Dàchūn has been translated and discussed in Paul U. Unschuld, Forgotten Traditions of Ancient Chinese Medicine (Paradigm, 1990) — the same volume that engages KR3eq011 Yīxué yuánliú lùn. The Wáng-edited Yī biān version is not separately translated. For Wáng’s broader Wēnbìng-school career see Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011).
Links
- Xú Dàchūn — see person note 徐大椿.
- Wáng Shìxióng — see person note 王士雄.
- Kanseki DB
- 醫砭 (jicheng.tw)