Kuàicán piān 鱠殘篇
Leftovers from the Minced-Fish Plate by 沈懋發 Shěn Màofā (mid- to late-18th c., Qīng).
About the work
A one-juǎn mid-Qián-lóng clinical-pharmacological miscellany by the otherwise obscure physician Shěn Màofā, conventionally dated Qiánlóng 42 / 1777. The title-metaphor kuàicán 鱠殘 — “the leftovers from the minced-fish plate” — frames the work modestly as a residual collection of clinical reflections gathered after the author’s principal teaching. The text is a sequence of short topical essays — without a unifying systematic structure — covering:
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Pharmaceutical ethics and the misuse of stimulant drugs (Mìshòu yàofāng xū fānchá lùn 秘授藥方須番察論): a polemic against the contemporary fashion for compounded jíjié 急劫 (“urgently-acting”) formulae using fùzǐ 附子, guìzhī 桂枝, jiāo 椒, zhū 茱, animal-derived powerful drugs (nàqí 肭臍 seal-penis, gǒushèn 狗腎, hǎimǎ 海馬 seahorse, géjiè 蛤蚧 gecko, quánxiē 全蠍 scorpion, hóngqiān 紅鉛), and aromatic-camphoraceous substances combined in promiscuous formularies. Shěn argues these compounds, while spectacular in immediate effect, accumulate toxicity and cause delayed catastrophic illness.
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Yin-supplementing doctrine (Yǎngshēng dāng yǐ yǎngyīn wéi shǒuwù lùn 養生當以養陰為首務論): a doctrinal essay defending the Zhū Dānxī zīyīn 滋陰 tradition against the late-Imperial vogue for bǔhuǒ 補火 (fire-supplementing) — explicitly framed against the LúShī Huǒshén kind of position. Shěn invokes the Jìjì 既濟 and Xíkǎn 習坎 hexagrams and the Lǚ Xiān 呂仙 (“pure-yang”) legend, arguing that “yīn is the tǐ 體 (substance), yáng is the yòng 用 (function)” and that yin-cultivation is the slower, harder, more enduring practice while fire-supplementing is fast but unstable.
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The three “powerful drugs” of the Sānyīn (Fùzǐ Wúzhūyú gānjiāng lùn 附子吳茱萸乾僵論): a detailed pharmacological exposition of fùzǐ, wúzhūyú, and gānjiāng as “the three generals who break through the Sānyīn checkpoints,” with extensive cautions against their misuse — a notable mid-Qīng anti-Huǒ-shén pharmacological statement antedating the Sìchuān Huǒshén pài of Zhèng Qīnān (KR3er080) by nearly a century.
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Specific materia medica monographs: extended treatments of huángqín 黃芩 (Qínguī 秭歸-product), tiānhuāfěn 天花粉 (Hóngnóng 弘農 product), and others.
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Parasitological doctrine (Lùn zhū chóng wéi bìng 論諸蟲為病): exposition of the jiǔ chóng 九蟲 (nine worms — fú, huí, bái, ròu, fèi, wèi, ruò, chì, náo) and sānshī chóng 三尸蟲 (three corpse-worms — Péng Jù 彭踞, Péng Zhì 彭質, Péng Jiǎo 彭矯) doctrines drawn from Cháo Yuánfāng’s Zhūbìng yuánhòu lùn 諸病源候論 and the Zǐtíng zhēnrén 紫庭真人 Daoist tradition; the proposition that láozhài 勞瘵 (consumption / tuberculosis) is caused by six of the nine worms transforming.
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Malaria and damp-warm pathology (Lùn nüèjí yǔ shīwēn rú nüè 論瘧疾與濕溫如瘧): essays on nüè 瘧 (malaria) as a Shǎoyáng 少陽 channel disease and on shīwēn 濕溫 mimicking malaria, with formulary recommendations (Xiǎo Cháihú tāng 小柴胡湯 base, the Xiōngsū yǐn 芎蘇飲 modification for Juéyīn–Shǎoyáng blood-deficient fire-excessive presentations).
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt is presented as a unified single text without separate prefatory matter; no internal date or self-preface is present in the surviving witness. The 1777 dating is from secondary sources (the Jìchéng 笈成 modern Chinese-medical canon catalog).
Abstract
Shěn Màofā is poorly documented in standard biographical sources. The work is preserved through the Jìchéng tradition and was repatriated to China via the hxwd series from a Japanese imprint. Its principal historical significance is as a substantial mid-Qián-lóng (1770s) polemical statement of the anti-warming-tonifying / yin-supplementing tradition, working at the same period as the Xú Dàchūn / Yè Tiānshì wing of Sūzhōu medicine (cf. KR3er086, KR3er082) and antedating the Sìchuān Huǒshén pài by a century.
CBDB has no entry for Shěn Màofā under this identification.
Translations and research
No European-language translation or substantial secondary study of the Kuài-cán piān located. The work is not treated in the standard English-language histories of Qīng medicine. For the broader mid-Qīng zī-yīn / bǔ-huǒ debate in which this work participates see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007); Hinrichs & Barnes, eds., Chinese Medicine and Healing (Belknap, 2013).
Other points of interest
The work’s strict anti-stimulant pharmacological position — and especially its long catalog of dangerous animal-derived powerful drugs and its specific cautions on fùzǐ / wúzhūyú / gānjiāng — make it a distinctive precursor of the late-19th-c. anti-Huǒshén polemics. The 1777 date places it firmly in the Qiánlóng intellectual milieu and the Sūzhōu / Jiāngnán medical world, though Shěn’s specific regional affiliation is uncertain.
Links
- 鱠殘篇 (Jìchéng 笈成)
- 鱠殘篇 (ctext)
- Person notes 沈懋發 (author).