Mìchuán zhèngzhì yàojué jí lèifāng 秘傳證治要訣及類方
Secretly Transmitted Essentials of Pattern-Treatment, with the Companion Formulary by 戴思恭 Dài Sīgōng (zì Yuánlǐ 元禮, 1324–1405, Pújiāng 浦江 / Zhūjì 諸暨, Zhèjiāng).
About the work
A two-part early-Míng clinical compendium by the imperial physician Dài Yuánlǐ — the most senior surviving direct disciple of Zhū Zhènhēng 朱震亨 (Dānxī 丹溪, 1281–1358), and the principal channel through which the Dānxī tradition passed into the early Míng court medical establishment. The work comprises two paired components, customarily printed together:
- Zhèngzhì yàojué 證治要訣 (Essentials of Pattern-and-Treatment) — twelve juǎn of doctrinal-clinical exposition organised under disease-categories: each entry gives the pattern’s pathomechanism, Nèijīng / JīnYuán doctrinal precedent, the standard prescription, and Dài’s characteristic clinical jiājiǎn modifications.
- Lèifāng 類方 (Companion Formulary) — twelve juǎn of the corresponding prescriptions, arranged by category and cross-keyed to the Yàojué.
The work systematically applies the late-Yuán Dānxī doctrine — yáng cháng yǒu yú yīn cháng bù zú 陽常有餘陰常不足 (yang always in excess, yin always in deficiency), with xiānghuǒ 相火 as the central pathomechanism — to the full clinical repertoire, supplying the practical clinical curriculum that Zhū Zhènhēng’s own Gézhì yúlùn 格致餘論 (KR3e0042) and Dānxī xīnfǎ 丹溪心法 (KR3er018) had left programmatic. Dài’s own characteristic clinical contribution is his emphasis on qìxuètánhuǒ 氣血痰火 — the four-fold “constitutional-residue” diagnostic scheme that became canonical in the late-Míng under the influence of his successor Wáng Lún 王綸 (Míngyī zázhù KR3er040).
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries a single substantial preface by Hú Yíng 胡濚 (1375–1463), at the time of writing Zīdé dàifū zhèngzhì shàngqīng Lǐbù shàngshū qián tàizǐ bīnkè jiān Guózǐ jìjiǔ (a senior court official), dated Zhèngtǒng 8 / 1443 (癸亥年, eleventh month, fourth day). Hú narrates: (i) Dài Yuánlǐ’s standing as tàiyī yuàn shǐ 太醫院使 (Imperial Medical Bureau Head) under the early Míng, with explicit pedigree from Shénnóng through the Yellow Emperor, Yī Yǐn 伊尹, Wáng Shūhé 王叔和, and Lǐ Dōngyuán; (ii) Dài’s reluctance to publish — the work was kept in his personal trunk and not disseminated; (iii) Dài’s friendship with the Língyǐnsì 靈隱寺 monk Zàn Xīxù 纘西緒 (xīxù being the monastic name), a fāngwài qìjiāo 方外契交 (Buddhist friend-from-beyond-the-world), who alone was permitted to copy the manuscript; (iv) the 1441 (Zhèngtǒng xīnyǒu 正統辛酉) episode in which the imperial inspector 陳嶷 Chén Yí, passing through Cíxī 慈溪 (Níngbō region) on circuit, was shown the manuscript by Xīxù at the Yǒnglèsì 永樂寺 (where Xīxù was abbot) and recognised its medical value; and (v) the consequent 1443 publication under Chén Yí’s patronage, for which Hú Yíng supplied the preface.
Abstract
The work’s composition is internally placed in Dài Yuánlǐ’s working life (1324–1405) — most likely his late maturity in the 1380s–90s, when he was clinically established as imperial physician under the Hóngwǔ 洪武 court. The work was held privately by Dài and was not put into print in his lifetime; it survived only through Xīxù’s monastic copy at Língyǐnsì, from which the 1443 printing descends. We follow the 1395–1443 bracket — composition some time before Dài’s death, first printing under Hú Yíng’s preface in 1443. The hxwd recension descends from a Japanese reprinting of the 1443 edition.
Hú Yíng’s preface (dated 1443) is a major early-Míng court document and supplies invaluable biographical detail on Dài Yuánlǐ’s relations with the Buddhist establishment at Hangzhou. The 1443 printing is the editio princeps of the work; later Míng and Qīng reprintings followed it directly. The work circulated in the late Míng under both the original combined title and as two separately-printed components.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Mì-chuán zhèng-zhì yào-jué located. Dài Yuán-lǐ’s place in the early-Míng transmission of Dān-xī doctrine into the court medical establishment is treated in TJ Hinrichs and Linda Barnes, Chinese Medicine and Healing (Harvard, 2013); Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin (California, 1999); Marta Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics (Routledge, 2011).