Yuányùndòng de gǔ Zhōngyī xué 圓運動的古中醫學
The Ancient Chinese Medicine of Circular Motion by 彭子益 Péng Zǐyì (1871–1949, Yúnnán).
About the work
A two-part (upper and lower篇), eighteen-chapter Republican-period systematisation of Chinese medical doctrine, composed by the Yún-nán-born medical educator Péng Zǐyì over twenty-six years (1921–1947) and serving as the textbook for Péng’s teaching at multiple TCM colleges in Taiyuan, Beiping, Chengdu, Chongqing, the Nanjing Central National Medical College Special Research Class, and Kunming. The work’s title-metaphor — yuányùndòng 圓運動 (“circular motion”) — figures the entire human body and its physiological process as a single integrated cyclical motion in correspondence with the èrshísì jiéqì 二十四節氣 (twenty-four solar terms) and the great circular descent-and-ascent of solar heat through the year.
Péng’s systematisation organises Chinese medicine around two foundational principles:
-
The jiàngchénshēngfú 降沉升浮 (descend-submerge-rise-float) cycle: the solar heat-energy projected onto the earth’s surface follows a yearly cycle of descending (winter), submerging (deepest winter), rising (spring), and floating (summer); the human body mirrors this in the 24-hour daily cycle and in the lifetime cycle of growth, maturity, decline.
-
The shíèr jīng yuányùndòng 十二經圓運動 (circular motion of the twelve channels): the twelve channels are organised as a continuous closed loop (rather than a set of paired meridians), with qì and xuè flowing through them in a single great cycle.
The work is organised as an integrated curriculum:
Upper part (foundational):
- Yuánlǐ shàngpiān 原理上篇 (Doctrinal Principles, Upper)
- Gǔfāng shàngpiān 古方上篇 (Classical Formulae, Upper — 6 nèishāng base-formulae plus 10 wàigǎn base-formulae)
- Gǔfāng zhōngpiān 古方中篇 (Classical Formulae, Middle)
- Gǔfāng xiàpiān 古方下篇 (Classical Formulae, Lower)
- Shānghán lùn fāngjiě piān 傷寒論方解篇 (Annotated Shānghán lùn Formulae)
- Jīnguì fāngjiě piān 金匱方解篇 (Annotated Jīnguì Formulae)
- Wēnbìng běnqì piān 溫病本氣篇 (Warm-Disease in Its Original Qì)
- Shíbìng běnqì piān 時病本氣篇 (Seasonal Diseases in Their Original Qì)
- Érbìng běnqì piān 兒病本氣篇 (Children’s Diseases in Their Original Qì)
- Màifǎ piān 脈法篇 (Pulse Method)
- Shétāi piān 舌胎篇 (Tongue Diagnosis)
- Yàoxìng gānglǐng piān 藥性綱領篇 (Materia Medica Principles)
- Shēngmìng yǔzhòu piān 生命宇宙篇 (Life and the Cosmos)
Lower part (extended): 14. Yuánlǐ xiàpiān 原理下篇 (Doctrinal Principles, Lower) 15. Shānghán lùn liùjīng yuánwén dúfǎ piān 傷寒論六經原文讀法篇 (Reading the Shānghán Six Channels) 16. Zábìng piān 雜病篇 (Miscellaneous Diseases) 17. Wángshì yīàn piān 王氏醫案篇 (Notes on Wáng [Mèngyīng]‘s Case Records) 18. Tāngtóu gǎicuò piān 湯頭改錯篇 (Correcting the Tāngtóu)
Péng’s polemical-historical position is striking: he argues that the entire post-Wáng Shūhé tradition has misread the Nèijīng and consequently misclassified shānghán, wēnbìng, and mázhěn (measles) — Yè Tiānshì, Wáng Mèngyīng, and Wú Jūtōng had clinical experience but no grasp of the underlying principle. Péng claims to restore the lost gǔ Zhōngyī xué 古中醫學 (“ancient Chinese medicine”), to which his title refers.
The work is also self-consciously methodological-pedagogical: Péng claims the yuányùndòng doctrine reduces medical learning to a six-month curriculum (rather than the conventional decades) — provided the student begins from the Yuánlǐ shàngpiān and follows Péng’s prescribed sequence.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries Péng’s own Quánshū gàiyào 全書概要 (general introduction) and Běnshū dúfǎ cìxù 本書讀法次序 (reading sequence), explicitly programmatic. The principal authorial colophon dates the final-form completion to Mínguó sānshí nián dīnghài duānwǔ 中華民國三十年丁亥端午 (“ROC 30 / dīnghài Dragon-Boat” — the Mínguó sānshí and dīnghài cyclical year are inconsistent; the dīnghài year is 1947 = ROC 36, suggesting either a misprint or a unique reckoning), at age 74 suì, at Bóbái 博白 in Guǎngxī.
Abstract
The composition window of 1921–1947 reflects: (i) the first-version date of 1921, when the work began circulating as a Taiyuan medical-college textbook; (ii) the multiple revisions (over thirty, by Péng’s account) over the subsequent decades; (iii) the final-form colophon dated to either 1941 or 1947 (the source’s cyclical-vs.-reign-year mismatch).
Péng Zǐyì (1871–1949), originally named Péng Chéngzì 彭承祉 (zì Zǐyì 子益), was a major Republican-period TCM educator and synthesiser. Born in Yúnnán, he was associated successively with the Taiyuan Shanxi Medical College, the Beiping (Beijing) Imperial Medical College, the Chengdu and Chongqing TCM schools, the Nanjing Central National Medical College, and the Kunming TCM school. He died in 1949 at Kunming.
The work was extensively reprinted in the late Republican and early-PRC period, was suppressed during the 1950s–1970s, and was rediscovered and reprinted in the 1990s by the Lǐ Kě yīyǎ 李可醫案 / Sìchuān Huǒshén pài revival movement — Péng’s doctrine is now widely regarded as foundational to the modern PRC’s renewed Sìchuān classical-medical traditions. It has had a substantial post-2000 international following in the broader sinophone-and-Anglophone TCM-revival movement.
CBDB has no entry for Péng Zǐyì (a Republican figure).
Translations and research
For Péng Zǐ-yì in English see Heiner Fruehauf, Classical Chinese Medicine (various essays, 2000s–2020s), which explicitly identifies Péng as one of the principal late-20th-c. rediscovered Chinese-medical classical revivalists. A partial English translation has been undertaken by various TCM-school groups; no comprehensive scholarly edition. For Péng’s place in modern Chinese medical history see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007), and Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine (UBC, 2014).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the most ambitious and successful 20th-c. reformulations of Chinese medical theory, and is the principal monument of the Yuányùndòng 圓運動 school of modern Chinese medicine. It is widely read in present-day PRC and international TCM circles.