Míng yī zá zhù 明醫雜著
Miscellaneous Writings of an Illustrious Physician by 王綸 Wáng Lún (zì Rǔyán 汝言, hào Jiézhāi 節齋, of Yínxiàn 鄞縣 / Níngbō, 1453–1510); with extensive Míng commentary by 薛己 Xuē Jǐ (zì Xīnfǔ 新甫, hào Lìzhāi 立齋, 1487–1559).
About the work
A six-juǎn clinical-doctrinal miscellany originally composed by Wáng Lún 王綸 in the early Míng Hóngzhì / Zhèngdé era, and substantially expanded in mid-Míng Jiājìng with annotations by Xuē Jǐ that effectively constitute a second-layer commentary work in their own right. The body text comprises Wáng Lún’s zázhù (miscellaneous writings) — short essays on disease aetiology, pulse, zàngfǔ doctrine, and characteristic clinical patterns — while Xuē’s interleaved commentary develops the warming-tonifying (wēnbǔ 溫補) doctrine that became the dominant late-Míng clinical orientation. The work is one of the most-cited clinical texts of the mid-Míng era and is the principal vehicle by which Wáng Lún’s clinical thought (which itself synthesised the Yìshuǐ tradition with the Dānxī tradition) was carried into the late Míng under Xuē Jǐ’s warming-tonifying framing.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with the zhùxù 注序 (commentary preface) of Qián Wēi 錢薇 (hào Hǎishí 海石, of Hǎiyán 海鹽, jìnshì 1538), signed Jiājìng suì jǐyǒu zhèngyuè liù rì 嘉靖歲己酉正月六日 — the sixth day of the first month, Jiājìng 28 = February 1549. Qián’s preface develops a precise medical-historical lineage of the Sūzhōu (姑蘇) medical school: it begins with Gě Yìngléi 葛應雷 (the early-Yuán Sūzhōu founding figure), continues through Wáng Āndào 王安道 and Zhào Liángrén 趙良仁, and culminates in Xuē Jǐ. Qián narrates that Xuē Jǐ had served in the Tàiyī yuàn under both Xiàozōng 孝宗 (1487–1505) and the current Shìzōng 世宗 (Jiājìng), and that his twenty years of post-retirement scholarship had produced the present Míngyī zázhù annotation as well as much of Xuē’s other clinical corpus. Qián characterises medicine in the words of the Hàn physician Guō Yù 郭玉 (Hòu Hàn shū biography): “yī, yán yì yě 醫，言意也” — “medicine: what is said, is the intention; the secret of the body’s organisation is held in the heart-and-hand of the physician, and can be intuited but not spoken”.
Abstract
The composition of the original Míngyī zázhù by Wáng Lún is conventionally dated to c. 1502 (the standard Chinese-medicine reference dating). Wáng Lún’s lifedates (1453–1510) are well-documented in Míng jìnshì records; he was a jìnshì of Chénghuà 20 (1484) and served as governor of Sìchuān. The XuēQián commentary recension that constitutes the work as transmitted was completed in Jiājìng 28 (1549) and printed shortly thereafter. The notBefore / notAfter fields bracket the received recension: the body text was composed by 1502, the commentary was completed by 1549. The work was widely circulated in the late Míng and Qīng and was a major source for KR3er019 Dānxī xīnfǎ fùyú of 方廣 Fāng Guǎng (1536) and for KR3eq044 Zhèngzhì zhǔnshéng of Wáng Kěntáng (1602).
Translations and research
No comprehensive European-language translation of the Míng-yī zá-zhù located. For Wáng Lún and the mid-Míng Yì-shuǐ-Dān-xī synthesis see Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin (California, 1999); for Xuē Jǐ and the warming-tonifying tradition see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007).