Gǔjīn yī jiàn 古今醫鑑
The Medical Mirror, Ancient and Modern by 龔信 Gōng Xìn (zì Ruìzhī 瑞之, hào Xīyuán 西園, mid-Míng), edited and expanded by his son 龔廷賢 Gōng Tíngxián (zì Zǐcái 子才, hào Yúnlín 雲林, c. 1522 – c. 1619).
About the work
A sixteen-juǎn synthetic medical compendium organised under the three-fold rubric of (1) pulse (脈息), (2) disease-presentation (病症), (3) treatment-formula (治方) — Gōng’s standard father-son compositional template. The work covers internal medicine, gynaecology, pediatrics, and external medicine, with each disease-category treated under the three-fold màizhèngfāng framework. The work’s distinctive feature is its synthesis of the canonical HuángQí tradition with the post-Hàn CāngYuè 倉越 (Cāng Gōng / Biǎnquè) tradition and the JīnYuán four masters: each disease-discussion canvasses these multiple lineages, presenting the most-cited formula from each for the reader’s selection. The work was compiled over twenty years (逾二十載而書始就) — a substantial editorial undertaking comparable in scope to its near-contemporary KR3er031 Gǔjīn yītǒng dàquán (Xú Chūnfǔ, 1556).
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with two prefaces. (1) The preface of Liú Zìqiáng 劉自強 of Fúgōu 扶溝 — a former censor-and-cabinet official (“余備員臺省，歷事三朝”) who narrates his own retirement to “shut the door and read the medical books” (掩扉檢閱方書), in pursuit of yǎngshēng. Liú reports that the Gōng family physician (世醫龔生) presented him with the manuscript and requested a preface. Liú characterises the work as the rare medical compendium that achieves both “concision of language with detail of content” (文約而事詳，辭簡而義當). Liú names Gōng Tíngxián as the principal compiler, with his father Gōng Xìn (西園) as the originator (其父西園，諱信，字瑞之，父子並以醫大行於世). (2) A second mirror-themed preface (truncated in source) opens “夫鑑以照物，妍媸見焉” — the metaphor of the mirror reflecting beauty-and-ugliness as the medical-canon revealing disease-and-cure.
Abstract
The work was completed in Wànlì 4 (1576) by Gōng Xìn and brought to print in Wànlì 17 (1589) by Gōng Tíngxián; the standard Chinese-medicine reference works date the work to 1589 (the first-print date). Gōng Tíngxián’s Wànbìng huíchūn (KR3er039, 1587) was completed before the Yījiàn was printed; both works circulated together as the principal Gōngshì 龔氏 family medical corpus. The Yījiàn was carried into Korea and Japan and had substantial influence on the Dōngyī bǎojiàn 東醫寶鑑 (1613) and the Edo-period Japanese medical tradition. There is an “chūkān běn 初刊本” (first-print edition) preserved separately as KR3er038 in the hxwd transmission.
Translations and research
No comprehensive European-language translation of the Gǔ-jīn yī-jiàn located. For the Gōng family corpus see Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin (California, 1999); Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007). Chinese-language critical edition: Gǔ-jīn yī-jiàn jiào-zhù 古今醫鑑校註 (Rénmín wèishēng, 1991).