Yùgāngzhāi yīxué bǐzhǔ 鬱岡齋醫學筆麈
Medical “Talking-Whisk” from the Yù-Crag Studio by 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng (zì Yǔtài 宇泰, 1549–1613), completed at the Yùgāngzhāi 鬱岡齋 in Wànlì 30 (1602), with the modern editorial recension prepared by 秦伯未 Qín Bówèi (1901–1970, zì Zhījì 之濟) in 1926.
About the work
A two-juǎn condensation by Qín Bówèi (the early-Republican-era Shànghǎi medical educator) of the medical-theoretical material in Wáng Kěntáng’s twelve-juǎn late-Míng bǐjì 筆麈 (talking-whisk-style miscellany) Yùgāngzhāi bǐzhǔ 鬱岡齋筆麈. The parent bǐzhǔ — covering literature, history, yìjīng 易經 studies, yīnyáng wǔxíng cosmology, and medical questions in twelve juǎn — was preserved in the Sìkù quánshū 四庫全書 and is cited by the Sìkù tíyào editors as among the finest late-Míng bǐjì productions. Qín Bówèi’s editorial intervention extracts the medical content (approximately three-tenths of the parent work) and presents it as a self-contained two-juǎn medical compendium with section-headings and apparatus suited to early-Republican Shànghǎi medical-school curriculum. The work is methodologically interesting as Wáng Kěntáng’s pre-Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng medical notes — composed in 1602, two years before the 1604 completion of the Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng’s KR3e0078 cold-damage and surgical sections — and therefore preserves Wáng’s medical thinking in its formative pre-encyclopaedic stage.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text opens with the preface by 秦伯未 Qín Bówèi of Shànghǎi (signed Bǐngyín bāyuè shàng Shànghǎi Qín Zhījì Bówèifǔ jì 丙寅八月上海秦之濟伯未甫記 = eighth month of bǐngyín 丙寅 = 1926). Qín records the parent twelve-juǎn bǐzhǔ’s inclusion in the Sìkù quánshū, his discovery that approximately three-tenths of the parent work concerns medicine, his commissioning of his colleague 錢季寅 Qián Jìyín to extract the medical sections for separate publication, the addition of jiàochóu 校讎 (textual collation), small-section xiǎomù 小目 (sub-headings), and the rename to Yīxué bǐzhǔ 醫學筆麈. Qín further notes that the parent bǐzhǔ was completed in Wànlì sānshínián rényín 萬曆三十年壬寅 = 1602, while Wáng’s Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng was completed in Wànlì sānshíèrnián jiǎchén 萬曆三十二年甲辰 = 1604, so that the medical bǐzhǔ records “[material] preserved separately as Wáng was compiling the Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng, with which it can be cross-referenced”.
Abstract
The composition window 1602–1926 reflects the two-stage history: Wáng Kěntáng’s original 1602 composition of the parent bǐzhǔ (at age 53, mid-career), and Qín Bówèi’s 1926 editorial extraction of the medical material into the present two-juǎn form. The work is the most useful surviving witness to Wáng Kěntáng’s medical thinking in its pre-encyclopaedic form — the doctrinal positions on the xiānghuǒ / mìngmén problem, the integration of yìjīng cosmology with clinical reasoning, and the engagement with the 朱震亨 Zhū Dānxī yīn-supplementation tradition were all worked out in the 1602 bǐzhǔ before being systematised in the 1604 Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng.
CBDB records Wáng Kěntáng at 1549–1613. Qín Bówèi (1901–1970) is the early-Republican Shànghǎi medical educator best known for his role in the Shànghǎi Zhōngyī xuéyuàn 中醫學院 founding and the Zhōngyī rùmén 中醫入門 textbook tradition.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Yùgāngzhāi yīxué bǐzhǔ located. For Wáng Kěntáng’s broader corpus see Joanna Grant 2003; for Qín Bówèi’s Republican-era medical-reform programme see Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, Neither Donkey Nor Horse (Chicago, 2014).
Links
- Wáng Kěntáng (zh)
- Qín Bówèi (zh)
- Person notes 王肯堂 and 秦伯未.
- Kanseki DB
- 鬱岡齋醫學筆麈 (jicheng.tw)