Shòu shì bǎo yuán 壽世保元
Preserving the Primordium to Prolong Life by 龔廷賢 Gōng Tíngxián (zì Zǐcái 子才, hào Yúnlín 雲林 / Jǐngyuè 景岳, c. 1522 – c. 1619).
About the work
A ten-juǎn (in some recensions seven-juǎn) late-Míng synthetic medical compendium covering internal medicine, gynaecology, pediatrics, surgery and external medicine, and zǎnfāng 攢方 (collected formula) sections. The title Shòu shì bǎo yuán — “preserving the primordium [of life] in order to prolong the lifetime of the age” — programmatically aligns the work with the warming-tonifying Mìngmén 命門 tradition of Xuē Jǐ 薛己 and Zhào Xiànkě 趙獻可: the yuán 元 (primordium) is the life-fire of the Mìngmén, and the clinical programme of the work is therefore to “preserve” it through judicious tonification. The work is one of the most-cited late-Míng synthetic medical compendia and was foundational for the late-Míng and early-Qīng warming-tonifying clinical tradition. Gōng’s writing is consciously didactic and clinically immediate; each disease-category is treated with brief aetiological discussion, characteristic pulse pattern, and a series of graded formulae from light to severe presentation.
Abstract
The hxwd _000.txt and _001.txt are truncated (header plus opening of the Yīshuō 醫說 introductory chapter); the substantive text continues across the following juǎn files. Gōng Tíngxián was a hereditary physician of Jīnxī 金谿 (Fǔzhōu 撫州, Jiāngxī) and one of the most prolific late-Míng medical authors. His other principal works include the Wànbìng huíchūn 萬病回春 (KR3er039, 1587) — perhaps his most widely circulated work — Yúnlín shéngōu 雲林神彀, and Jìshì quánshū 濟世全書 (KR3er085). The Shòushì bǎoyuán was completed late in his life, conventionally dated to Wànlì 43 = 1615; this is the dating followed in modern Chinese-medicine reference works and accepted here. Gōng’s lifedates 1522–1619 are conventional brackets in Chinese-medicine reference works; CBDB does not have a clean entry. The work was widely reprinted through the Qīng and was carried into Korea and Japan, where it had substantial influence on the kōhō 古方 and gosei 後世 schools. Preserved in the Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí cóngshū through Japanese collections.
Translations and research
No comprehensive European-language translation of the Shòu-shì bǎo-yuán located. For Gōng Tíng-xián’s place in late-Míng medical literature see Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin (California, 1999); Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007). Chinese-language critical edition: Shòu-shì bǎo-yuán jiāo-zhù 壽世保元校註 (Rénmín wèishēng, 1996).