Dāntái yù àn 丹臺玉案
The Jade-Tablet Cases of the Cinnabar Terrace by 孫文胤 Sūn Wényìn (zì Duìwēi 對薇, hào Zàixiá 在峽 / Zàipéng 在蓬, late-Míng).
About the work
A six-juǎn late-Míng clinical compendium covering internal medicine, gynaecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology, and external medicine. The title metaphor dāntái yùàn — “the jade-tablet cases of the cinnabar terrace” — frames the work as a Daoist-resonant clinical reference (the dāntái is the alchemical altar of the inner-cultivation Daoist tradition; yùàn are the immortal’s record-tablets). The work is methodologically distinctive in its self-conscious synthesis of the SòngJīnYuán four-master tradition with the Lǐngshū / Sùwèn canonical literature, the Huángtíng nèijǐng 黃庭內景 Daoist physiological tradition, and the Màijīng 脈經 of Wáng Shūhé. Sūn Wényìn’s clinical orientation reflects the late-Míng warming-tonifying ascendancy: characteristic formulae include the Bǔzhōng yìqì tāng and the Shēngmài sǎn, and the work consistently emphasises yuánqì 元氣 (primordial-qì) preservation as the therapeutic foundation.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt opens with a preface by an official who befriended Sūn Wényìn during a stationing at Dānghú 當湖 in yǐchǒu 乙丑 winter (= winter 1625). The preface narrates that Sūn was a Xīnān 新安 (Hīzhōu) native who had moved to Běigù 北固 (Zhènjiāng) and become the most-sought-after physician of the lower-Yáng-zǐ region; the prefacer met him at Dānghú and “from his conversation, every word was striking; from his clinical tests, every test was effective” (與語語輒奇，試技技輒效). The prefacer further reports that Sūn’s training came from his careful study of the Língshū, Huángtíng nèijǐng, Màijīng of Wáng Shūhé, and the four Jīn–Yuán masters; he urges Sūn to write down his clinical doctrine, against the objection of the dictum “yī, yán yì yě” 醫，言意也 (medicine is intention, not amenable to verbal transmission). The work was therefore composed in response to this prefatory urging and brought to print in the late Wànlì / Chóngzhēn era.
Abstract
Sūn Wényìn (Duìwēi) was a Xīn-ān-born late-Míng physician active in the Zhènjiāng 鎮江 region; his clinical practice spanned the lower Yangtze, with frequent consultative travel to Sūzhōu and Hángzhōu. The composition of Dāntái yùàn is conventionally bracketed at Tiānqǐ / early Chóngzhēn era (c. 1625–1636); the yǐchǒu (1625) preface date provides the secure terminus post quem and the standard Chinese-medicine reference works place the work’s composition in this WànlìChóngzhēn transitional window. The work was repeatedly reprinted through the Qīng and was particularly influential in the Hangzhou-Suzhou medical milieu. Preserved in the Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí cóngshū through Japanese collections.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Dān-tái yù-àn located. For the late-Míng Xīn-ān medical tradition see Wú Yǐ-zhī’s 吳以哲 Chinese-language studies. Chinese-language critical edition: Dān-tái yù-àn jiào-shì 丹臺玉案校釋 (Rénmín wèishēng, 1995).
Links
- Person note 孫文胤.