Lèizhèng zhìcái 類證治裁
Tailored Treatment by Disease-Category by 林佩琴 Lín Pèiqín (zì Yúnhé 雲和, hào Xītóng 羲桐, 1772–1839, Dānyáng 丹陽 / Jiāngsū).
About the work
An eight-juǎn mid-Qīng systematic compendium of internal medicine, women’s medicine and paediatrics, organised under classified zhèng 證 (disease-categories) — Lín’s signature editorial principle. Each category opens with a doctrinal statement of pathomechanism, surveys earlier authorities (with explicit kǎojù-style citation), and concludes with a clinical-judgement ànyǔ 案語 by Lín himself that selects from the surveyed prescriptions on the basis of constitution, season, region, and concurrent conditions. The work is one of the most influential mid-Qīng zhèngzhì 證治 compendia and is distinguished from the related but more encyclopaedic Zhèngzhì huìbǔ (KR3er015) by the consistency of Lín’s editorial voice and by his characteristic blending of Yè Tiānshì 葉天士 wēnbìng doctrine with the late-Míng warming-tonifying tradition.
Prefaces
The hxwd _001.txt opens with the publication preface of 桂超萬 Guì Chāowàn (niányúdì 年愚弟, zhī Sūzhōu fǔ shì 知蘇州府事 — magistrate of Sūzhōu, fellow jǔrén of 1808 with Lín, having renewed their friendship in Běijīng in their examination year), dated Dàoguāng dīngwèi 道光丁未 = 1847 (tenth month). Guì narrates: Lín and Guì were tóngbǎng 同榜 jǔrén of the 1808 (wùchén 戊辰) provincial examination; after Lín’s failure at the 1809 (jǐsì 己巳) metropolitan examination he retired to medicine; Guì did not see Lín again for 30 years, until in the winter of dīngwèi 1847 Lín’s son Lín Zhīběn 林芝本 came to Guì at his Sūzhōu yámen with the manuscript of his late father’s medical compilation, requesting a publication preface; Guì then learned that Lín had been dead “also some eight years” (亦且八載) — placing Lín’s death at c. 1839, consistent with CBDB id 82646. A second preface (by Guì Yǐng 桂穎, son of the great Qiánlóng-era SKQS editor Wèi Yágōng 謂厓公 = Guì Wéncàn 桂文燦’s father, who narrates his discovery of Lín’s medical learning through the latter’s Línzhèng zhǐnán 臨證指南-style household tradition) follows, giving further biographical detail on Lín.
Abstract
Lín Pèiqín (1772–1839, CBDB 82646) was a Dānyáng native who turned to medicine after failing the jìnshì examination of 1809. He spent the remaining three decades of his life as a private practitioner and medical scholar, accumulating the materials for the Lèizhèng zhìcái through clinical practice. The work was completed shortly before his death c. 1839 and was carried into print by his son Lín Zhīběn in 1847 under Guì Chāowàn’s patronage.
The work was extensively reprinted in the late Qīng and was one of the most-used clinical reference compendia in the late-Qīng / Republican-era jiāchuán 家傳 medical-family practice. The hxwd recension is the modern repatriation of a Japanese reprinting.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Lèi-zhèng zhì-cái located. For Lín Pèi-qín’s place in the late-Qīng integration of wēn-bìng doctrine into general clinical practice see Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine (Routledge, 2011); for the Dān-yáng / Cháng-zhōu regional medical traditions see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition (Eastland, 2007).