Yīxué jiànnéng 醫學見能
Practical Capability in Medical Learning by 唐宗海 Táng Zōnghǎi (zì Róngchuān 容川, 1847–1897, Tiānpéng 天彭 / Péngxiàn 彭縣, Sìchuān).
About the work
A four-juǎn late-Qīng beginner’s medical handbook by Táng Zōnghǎi, the founder of the Chinese-Western medical-synthesis school (ZhōngXī huìtōng pài 中西匯通派). The work is the most accessible of Táng’s productions: he writes, in the fánlì 凡例, that he has deliberately set aside the classification-by-disease-name standard of medical handbooks and instead organised entries by the patient’s symptom — so that a non-physician parent or family member, on encountering a particular pain or swelling in a child or relative, can look up the symptom directly without first having to know the disease-name. Each symptom-entry gives the cause (with proper yīnyáng and zàngfǔ identification), the corresponding formula, and a brief verse-mnemonic appended in the second edition for memorisation. The closing juǎn contains a self-standing emergency formulary covering trauma, falls, sudden loss of consciousness, and the major life-threatening clinical emergencies, intended for family practice. The work is a deliberately popular companion-piece to Táng’s more theoretically demanding ZhōngXī huìtōng wǔ zhǒng 中西匯通五種.
Prefaces
The hxwd _001.txt carries (i) the publication preface of 秦伯未 Qín Bówèi (1901–1970), the Republican-era Shànghǎi physician, dated jiǎzǐ 甲子 8th month = 1924 — Qín narrates that he obtained Táng’s manuscript “from a writing-case in the Jiāngyòu 江右 region” and held it for over a decade before bringing it to print, that the work was particularly esteemed in his own father’s bureaucratic milieu in Yùzhāng 豫章 (Nánchāng), where the family routinely consulted it for the illnesses of subordinates, and that the work fills a gap in Táng’s published corpus, the ZhōngXī huìtōng wǔ zhǒng having long been in print but this primer remaining unpublished; (ii) the fánlì 凡例 (editorial guidelines, five items), explaining the symptom-first organisation, the verse-mnemonics added by Qín, the integration of women’s-and-children’s medicine into the general categories, and the emergency-formulary appendix; (iii) Táng’s own original preface (Yuán xù 原敘 / 備豫不虞), explaining the work’s pedagogical motivation — that medicine is bùyú zhī bèi 不虞之備 (preparation for the unforeseen) and that every parent should command at least a baseline medical literacy.
Abstract
Táng Zōnghǎi’s original composition of the Yīxué jiànnéng is conventionally dated to Tóngzhì 12 / 1873, the year of Táng’s first major medical publication, on the strength of his self-preface and the internal stylistic affinity with the rest of his early-career works. The work circulated only narrowly in manuscript in Táng’s lifetime and was only printed in 1924 by Qín Bówèi, who supplied the publication preface and the verse-mnemonics.
CBDB lists Táng with conflicting dates (87672: 1846–1897); the modern consensus is 1851–1908 in some sources and 1847–1897 in others. We follow the 1847–1897 bracket established in the existing person note. The Yīxué jiànnéng, with its Republican-era Qín Bówèi publication, is the latest-published of Táng’s writings and the only one to reach print posthumously.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Yī-xué jiàn-néng located. For Táng Zōng-hǎi and the Zhōng-Xī huì-tōng school see Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 (Vancouver: UBC, 2014); Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition (Eastland, 2007); Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics (Routledge, 2011).