Yīxué zhǐ guī 醫學指歸
Pointing the Way Back to Medical Learning by 趙術堂 Zhào Shùtáng (hào Shuānghú 雙湖, late-Qīng physician of Xīnghuà 興化 / Gāoyóu 高郵).
About the work
A two-juǎn (in some recensions four-juǎn) late-Qīng didactic medical handbook focused principally on the jīngluò 經絡 (channel-network) system — Zhào Shùtáng’s particular clinical interest. The work was composed by Zhào in his retirement spare-time to “enable later medical-learners to understand the origins and continuations of the channel-network” (俾後之學醫者識經絡原委). The work’s clinical orientation reflects Zhào’s regional JiāngHuái 江淮 environment, where damp pathologies were epidemic (人多病濕); Zhào’s reputation in his lifetime was specifically for the treatment of damp diseases of the JiāngHuái region. The work is the principal medical-pedagogical contribution of the Xīnghuà medical lineage of the late Qīng — a regional medical-pedagogical tradition that was carried into the early Republic by Zhào’s descendants and disciples.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt preserves the preface of Liáng Yuándì 梁園棣 (hào Língshí 靈石, the holder of zhīzhōu xián 知州銜 honour rank and magistrate of Xīnghuà 興化縣), the local official under whom Zhào practised. Liáng narrates that he had served three terms as magistrate of Xīnghuà and that he had repeatedly heard Zhào Shuānghú spoken of as “the foremost local yī in the JiāngHuái” (江淮間足跡殆遍). After Zhào’s death, Liáng commissioned the inclusion of Zhào’s biographical record (xíngshí 行實) in the imperial-court memorialised jīngpiān 旌篇 of the gazetteer-of-the-meritorious; Liáng was simultaneously compiling the Xīnghuà xiàn zhì 興化縣志 (Xīnghuà county gazetteer), in which Zhào would be honoured in the liúyù 流寓 (emigré) biography section. The preface is undated but the editorial context — Língshí magistrate, three-term Xīnghuà service, post-Zhào death — places it at Dàoguāng late or early Xiánfēng era (the 1850s). A second preface (truncated in source) cites Fàn Wénzhèng 范文正 (Fàn Zhòngyān, 989–1052) and his famous remark “若不能為良相，必為良醫”.
Abstract
Zhào Shùtáng (Shuānghú) was a Gāoyóu 高郵-born physician who settled in Xīnghuà 興化 (Jiāngsū) and conducted his clinical practice across the JiāngHuái region. The composition is conventionally dated to Dàoguāng 28 = 1848, before Zhào’s death. Zhào also produced the Shānghán lùn zhù 傷寒論注 (a commentary on Zhāng Zhòngjǐng) and miscellaneous yīàn (case-records). His lifedates are not securely documented; the conventional bracket in modern Chinese-medicine reference works is c. 1800 – c. 1850. The work was preserved in Japanese collections and entered the Hǎiwài huíliú zhōngyī gǔjí cóngshū through this route; the standard modern Chinese recension dates from the 1990s editorial efflorescence.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language secondary literature located. For the late-Qīng Jiāng-Sū regional medical traditions see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007).