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太醫局諸科程文格

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Text ID
KR3et003
Date
1212–1214
Dynasty
宋

Tàiyī jú zhūkē chéngwén gé 太醫局諸科程文格

Model Examination Essays for the Various Branches of the Imperial Medical Bureau by 何大任 (序)

About the work

The Tàiyī jú zhūkē chéngwén gé 太醫局諸科程文格 (also transmitted under the shorter title Tàiyī jú zhūkē chéngwén 太醫局諸科程文) is a nine-juàn compilation of model examination essays prepared for use in the curricular examinations of the Southern-Sòng Imperial Medical Bureau (Tàiyī jú 太醫局, the state medical school in Lín’ān). It was assembled, prefaced and put through the press in the early thirteenth century by Hé Dàrèn 何大任 in his capacity as Héān dàfū tèchāi pàn Tàiyī jú 和安大夫特差判太醫局, Director of the Bureau. The work preserves the standard examination formats — mòyì 墨義 (memoriter-comprehension), màiyì 脈義 (pulse-doctrine), dàyì 大義 (general doctrinal essay), jiǎlìng lùn 假令論 (hypothetical-case essay) and jiǎlìng fāngyì 假令方義 (hypothetical-formula essay) — and offers fully worked specimen answers across the nine subject “branches” (諸科) into which the Bureau’s curriculum was divided: dàfāngmài 大方脈 (adult general medicine), fēngkē 風科 (wind disorders), xiǎofāngmài 小方脈 (paediatrics), yǎnkē 眼科 (ophthalmology), chǎnkē 產科 (obstetrics), kǒuchǐ jiān yānhóu kē 口齒兼咽喉科 (dental and throat), chuāngzhǒng jiān zhéyáng kē 瘡腫兼折瘍科 (sores and fractures), zhēnjiǔ kē 鍼灸科 (acupuncture and moxibustion) and jīnzú jiān shūjìn kē 金鏃兼書禁科 (arrow-wound and incantatory medicine). As such it is the single most direct surviving witness to the actual examination practice — and thus the operative curriculum — of the Sòng state medical school.

Tiyao

Abstract

Authorship and approximate date rest principally on Hé Dàrèn’s own preface, in which he describes himself as Director of the Bureau (太醫局判) and explains that he is committing to print the established models that had hitherto circulated in the Bureau in manuscript, so that candidates throughout the realm should have access to authoritative specimens of each examination genre and so that the standards of doctrinal terminology and clinical reasoning enforced within the Bureau should not be lost. The preface is dated to the early Jiādìng 嘉定 reign (1208–1224), with most modern reference works placing the printing in 1212–1214. The text was lost in China after the Yuán but preserved through Japanese transmission, returning to Chinese circulation via the Yīxué dàchéng 醫學大成 and Cóngshū jíchéng 叢書集成 reprint traditions; the Sìkù quánshū recension descends from this returned line.

Internally, the work proceeds branch by branch through the nine curricular divisions. For each branch it provides a sequence of model answers under each of the five examination genres (mòyì, màiyì, dàyì, jiǎlìng lùn, jiǎlìng fāngyì). The mòyì questions test verbatim recall of canonical passages from the Sùwèn 素問, Língshū 靈樞, Nánjīng 難經, Shānghán lùn 傷寒論 and the Jiǎyǐ jīng 甲乙經; the màiyì questions test doctrinal mastery of the Màijīng 脈經 of Wáng Shūhé 王叔和; the dàyì genre requires extended exposition of a doctrinal point with apposite citation; the two jiǎlìng genres set out a hypothetical clinical case and require the candidate to identify the syndrome, prescribe a formula and justify each ingredient by appeal to the doctrine. As Hinrichs and Barnes note (Chinese Medicine and Healing, 2013, p. 119), the work was produced at the end of the twelfth century alongside the Xiǎoér wèishēng zǒngwēi lùnfāng 小兒衛生總微論方 (KR3e0031, also brought to press by Hé Dàrèn) as part of a coordinated late-Sòng Bureau effort to print authoritative curricular materials for the state medical schools.

For Hé Dàrèn’s full bureau title, the dating of his Bureau directorship, and his role as the cutter of the blocks for KR3e0031, see the person note for 何大任.

Translations and research

  • Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The evolution of Chinese medicine: Song dynasty, 960–1200. Needham Research Institute Series. London: Routledge. — chapter 2 (“The Imperial Medical Service”) gives the institutional context and quotes from the present work.
  • Hinrichs, T. J., and Linda L. Barnes, eds. 2013. Chinese medicine and healing: An illustrated history. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 118–119. — discusses the work as a printed Bureau curricular instrument.
  • Okanishi Tameto 岡西為人. 1969. Sòng-yǐ-qián yī-jí kǎo 宋以前醫籍考. Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng. 1053–1059, 1351–1354. — the principal philological treatment, with full bibliographical history.
  • Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2007. Yī-zhě yì yě 醫者意也. Guǎngxī Shīfàn Dàxué chūbǎn-shè. — analyses Sòng medical examinations including specimens from the present work.

Other points of interest

The Zhūkē chéngwén gé is the chief documentary source for the otherwise opaque pedagogy of the Sòng Tàiyī jú: it reveals which classics the Bureau actually examined, how doctrinal questions were phrased, and what kind of clinical reasoning was expected in a written formula-justification. Together with the contemporary Tàiyī jú zhūkē chéngwén 太醫局諸科程文 fragments and the Shèngjì zǒnglù 聖濟總錄, it documents the moment in the late Northern and Southern Sòng when state medical training was most ambitiously systematised and printed — a moment which had no real continuation under the Yuán and Ming and which thus marks the high-water of state-led medical pedagogy in premodern China.

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