Jǐngjǐng yīhuà 景景醫話
Medical Conversations of the Jingjing [Studio] by 陸錦燧 Lù Jǐnsuì (zì Jìnshēng 晉笙, fl. 1900s–1920s), early Republican-era Sūzhōu literatus-physician.
About the work
A one-juǎn clinical-anecdotal compendium by Lù Jǐnsuì — composed in 1913–1914 in Shanghai (Hùdú 滬讀) when Lù was practising medicine there and contributing serial columns to Yú Bótáo’s 余伯陶 Yī bào 醫報. The work’s title references Lù’s Jǐngjǐng 景景 (“Vista-and-Vista”) studio name. The opening case-record is a particularly striking one: Lù’s zúzhí 族侄 (clan-nephew) Qīnwén 欽文 (hào Pèishān 佩珊), a Japan-trained medical student, contracted appendicitis (chángyōng 腸癰), was treated by Japanese surgeons (who performed open appendectomy), then enrolled in the Chiba 千葉縣 Specialty Medical School for two years, returned to China, suffered recurrence, returned to Japan for further surgery, and died — Lù’s case-narrative is a measured but probing account of the limits of contemporary surgical-Western medical practice from the standpoint of a Chinese-classical-trained physician.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with the author’s self-preface signed by Lù Jǐnsuì at Sūzhōu (古吳晉笙陸錦燧 GǔWú Jìnshēng Lù Jǐnsuì). Internal date references: Guǐchǒu 癸丑 = 1913 (when Lù first hung his shingle in Shanghai); Jiǎyín chūchūn 甲寅初春 = early spring 1914 (when Lù re-entered the political world). The 1914 date establishes the composition window.
Abstract
Lù Jǐnsuì 陸錦燧 (Jìnshēng) is the same Sūzhōu literatus-physician represented in the present division by KR3eq061 Cúncuì yīhuà and KR3eq069 Jǐngjǐngshì yīgǎo zácún and in the broader KR3e corpus by KR3ed149 Pūxī mìchuán jiǎnyàn fāng. The Jǐngjǐng yīhuà is the Shanghai-period clinical-anecdotal companion to Lù’s earlier (Sūzhōu / Beijing) Cúncuì yīhuà and his later Jǐngjǐngshì yīgǎo zácún. The composition window 1913–1915 reflects Lù’s Shanghai practice period and the Jiǎyín 甲寅 1914 self-preface date. The work was originally published serially in Yú Bótáo’s 余伯陶 Yī bào 醫報 and subsequently collected for friend-distribution and (then) general printing. The work entered the broader circulation via the late-Qīng / Republican Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí (hxwd) repatriation programme.
Historiographical significance: the Jǐngjǐng yīhuà is a useful early-Republican source for the early-Republican literatus-physician’s response to Western medical practice in Shanghai — particularly to the early experience of Japan-trained Chinese students returning from Western-medical training and confronting the limits of contemporary surgical practice. Not in CBDB.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of Jǐng-jǐng yī-huà located. For Lù Jǐn-suì and the early-Republican Sū-zhōu / Shanghai literatus-physician circle see Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, Neither Donkey Nor Horse (Chicago, 2014); Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine 1850–1960 (UBC, 2014).