Gǔjīn yī jiàn (chūkān běn) 古今醫鑑（初刊本）
The Medical Mirror, Ancient and Modern (First-Print Edition) by 龔信 Gōng Xìn (Xīyuán 西園), edited by his son 龔廷賢 Gōng Tíngxián (Yúnlín 雲林).
About the work
The eight-juǎn first-printed recension of the Gǔjīn yījiàn — a more compact early-print form of the work that is otherwise transmitted in the sixteen-juǎn expanded recension preserved as KR3er037. The two recensions are textually distinct: the chūkān běn preserves the original Wànlì 4 (1576) version completed by Gōng Xìn before his son Gōng Tíngxián undertook the further editorial expansion that produced the sixteen-juǎn Wànlì 17 (1589) edition. The eight-juǎn recension is therefore of considerable textual-critical value as a witness to the earlier compositional state of the work, before the son’s substantive expansion. The two recensions share the same three-fold màizhèngfāng organisational template but the eight-juǎn recension omits material added in the sixteen-juǎn expansion, particularly in the gynaecology and pediatrics sections.
Abstract
The hxwd transmission preserves both the chūkān běn (eight juǎn) and the expanded recension (KR3er037, sixteen juǎn) as separate entries, an unusual and helpful editorial decision that allows the two textual states to be compared. The chūkān běn is preserved in Japanese collections (specifically through the Japanese Edo-period reprints) and is preserved nowhere in the standard Chinese medical-textual tradition; its return through the Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí cóngshū repatriation series is therefore a substantive textual-critical contribution. The notBefore / notAfter fields reflect the composition window of the parent work, between Gōng Xìn’s 1576 completion of the original and the 1589 publication of the expanded recension; the chūkān běn itself was probably printed in the early 1580s on the basis of Gōng Xìn’s posthumous manuscript.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located on the textual relationship between the two recensions. For the Gǔ-jīn yī-jiàn generally see the references cited under KR3er037.