Zhèng yīn mài zhì 症因脈治
Presentation, Aetiology, Pulse, and Treatment by 秦景明 Qín Jǐngmíng (zì Huángshì 皇士, hào Dànxiāngtáng Guǎngyě dàorén 淡香堂廣野道人, mid-late Míng).
About the work
A four-juǎn clinical handbook framed as a deliberate reordering of Zhū Dānxī’s four-pillar template (脈因症治) into the rubric 症因脈治 — zhèng (presentation) first, yīn (aetiology) second, mài (pulse) third, zhì (treatment) fourth. Qín’s pedagogical argument, set out explicitly in his preface, is that the Dānxī sequence (pulse-first) is practically unworkable for the bedside clinician, since the pulse must be interpreted through the clinical presentation rather than read prior to it. By placing the presentation first, the work makes the disease “have nowhere to hide its true nature” (病無遁情) and the formula correspondingly precise. The work covers internal medicine, gynaecology, and pediatrics under this reordered template, and is one of the most-cited late-Míng / Qīng didactic reorderings of the Dānxī clinical apparatus.
Prefaces
The _000.txt is empty in the hxwd transmission; the author preface appears at the head of _001.txt. Qín Jǐngmíng signs the preface as Chóngzhēn xīnsì jiāpíng yuè Dànxiāngtáng Guǎngyě dàorén Qín Jǐngmíng 崇禎辛巳嘉平月淡香堂廣野道人秦景明 — the twelfth month of Chóngzhēn 14 = January 1642 (the work was therefore completed in the final months of xīnsì 1641). A second preface by Shěn (沈序) narrates Qín as a man of broad classical learning who turned to medicine after failing to obtain office, devoting thirty years to the study of HuángQí medical doctrine.
Abstract
Qín Jǐngmíng was a late-Míng physician of the Sūzhōu region, zì Huángshì 皇士. The composition date is secured by the dated self-preface (early 1642 by the Western calendar, Chóngzhēn 14 xīnsì in the Chinese system); the notBefore / notAfter fields are set to 1641, the xīnsì year, reflecting the substantive completion of the work in that twelve-month period. The work is widely transmitted: there is a Qīng Shùnzhì 順治 12 (1655) printed edition by Qín’s son Qín Zhīzhèn 秦之楨, who appended further clinical material under the imprint Qínshì Zhīzhèn pǔ 秦氏之楨譜; the standard Qīng recension of Zhèngyīnmàizhì incorporates this addition. The hxwd transmission appears to be from a Japanese collection of the original four-juǎn Míng recension before the Zhīzhèn additions.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Zhèng-yīn-mài-zhì located. The late-Míng didactic restructuring of the Dān-xī apparatus is briefly treated in Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007), ch. 3.