Liúxiāngguǎn yīhuà 留香館醫話
Medical Conversations from the Lingering-Fragrance Studio by 華振 Huá Zhèn (zì Qúshēng 劬生, fl. 1900s–1930s) — Republican-era physician from Háohú 濠湖 (probably Háozhōu 濠州 / Anhui region).
About the work
A one-juǎn clinical-anecdotal compendium by Huá Zhèn 華振 — Republican-era physician trained as a Confucian scholar before turning to medicine, who studied under his clan-relative Xí Yùxiān 席育先 (the zúrén introduction-link mentioned in Huá’s self-preface). The work consists of: (a) general clinical-philosophical maxims; (b) drug-and-formulary observations; (c) case-records; (d) the famous-physician / charlatan-physician dichotomy material — specifically singled out by the Sūn preface as the work’s most distinctive contribution to the genre. The Sūn preface (by Bābāsǒu Sūn Kuí 八八叟孫魁, age 88 at the gēngwǔ 庚午 = 1930 mid-autumn signing) recommends the work for household reference.
Prefaces
- Sūn preface by Sūn Kuí 孫魁, signed Gēngwǔ zhōngqiū bābāsǒu Sūn Kuí, Yōngshūxuān studio 庚午中秋八八叟孫魁識於擁書軒 = mid-autumn 1930 by Sūn at age 88. Frames the work as a household-reference compendium suitable for both physicians and lay-patients.
- Self-preface by Huá Zhèn, recording his training under his clan-relative Xí Yùxiān at the Xí Yùxiān studio (probably mid-1900s to 1910s) and his subsequent independent practice with extensive consultation of friends’ library holdings.
Abstract
Huá Zhèn 華振 (Qúshēng 劬生, fl. 1900s–1930s), Republican-era physician from Háohú 濠湖 (probably Anhui), was a hereditary literatus-physician with a Confucian-classical training. His teacher Xí Yùxiān 席育先 was his clan-relative (the introduction was via zúrén 族人 family-network). The composition window 1925–1935 reflects the 1930 Sūn preface date and the work’s general circulation context. The work entered Chinese circulation via the late-Qīng / Republican Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí (hxwd) repatriation programme.
Historiographical significance: the Liúxiāngguǎn yīhuà is a useful source for the late-Republican (1930s) provincial literatus-physician tradition — the kind of locally-rooted hereditary-medical practice that, before the 1929 Yú Yúnxiù abolition proposal and the subsequent state-mediated reorganization of Chinese medicine, supported the broad spectrum of Chinese medical practice across provincial centres outside the JiāngZhèHù core. The work’s explicit named-physician / pretender-physician (míngyī / yōngyī) dichotomy material is one of the most useful late-Republican primary sources for the provincial medical-marketplace anxieties of the late-1920s and early-1930s. Not in CBDB.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of Liú-xiāng-guǎn yī-huà located. For late-Republican provincial Chinese medical practice see Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine 1850–1960 (UBC, 2014); Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, Neither Donkey Nor Horse (Chicago, 2014).
Links
- Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí cóngshū (hxwd) repatriation series entry.
- Person note 華振.