Pǔjì fāng · Yīnghái mén 普濟方·嬰孩門
Universal-Relief Prescriptions — Gate of Infants by 朱橚 (撰)
About the work
The Yīnghái mén 嬰孩門 (“Gate of Infants”) is the large pediatric subsection of 朱橚 Zhū Sù’s Pǔjì fāng 普濟方 (KR3e0067) — the 426-juan early-Míng imperial-princely formulary that is the most comprehensive medical compendium produced in any premodern tradition. In the surviving Sìkù-recovered ordering the Yīnghái mén occupies juàn 358–406 (the source file numbering of the present recension begins at _358.txt), traversing the whole field of neonatal and childhood medicine as understood in the late 14th / early 15th century. The section is divided by symptom and pattern: a general discourse (總論) on the special difficulty of pediatric practice — “treating an unspeaking child is harder than treating an old man” — followed by chapters on fontanel and birth-related conditions, the seven kinds of jīngfēng 驚風 (convulsion) and the five gān 疳 (chronic-malnutrition syndromes), the cardiac, hepatic, splenic, pulmonary and renal gān variants, the eight kinds of childhood epilepsy (xián 癇), tiāndiào 天瘹 and related convulsive crises, smallpox and other rash conditions, intestinal-and-digestive disorders, and a closing section on prescriptions for nursing-mother regimen. Like the rest of the Pǔjì fāng the chapter integrates earlier authorities — most notably 錢乙 Qián Yǐ, the Sòng Xiǎo’ér yào zhèng zhí jué and the Wèishì 危氏 Déxiào fāng — and gives multiple alternative prescriptions for each symptom, allowing the practitioner to weigh and select rather than follow a single fixed line.
Abstract
This text is not an independent composition; it is a modern excerpt of the pediatric portion of the Pǔjì fāng. For provenance, authorship, dating and transmission of the whole work see KR3e0067. The composition window of the parent text is 1390–1406 (Zhū Sù’s mature princely-scholarly tenure at Kāifēng, completed before the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn compilation began citing it in 1408). The text was lost in independent transmission after the Míng and survives because the Sìkù compilers recovered it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn citations.
The Yīnghái mén itself is one of the most extensive late-medieval pediatric corpora in any medical tradition. It transmits substantially all of 錢乙 Qián Yǐ’s pediatric doctrine (the five-organ gān taxonomy, the Liùwèi dìhuáng wán 六味地黃丸 and other Sòng pediatric formulae), together with the SòngYuán smallpox / dòuzhěn 痘疹 specialist literature and the diagnostic technique of “looking at the index-finger veins” (虎口三關 — fēngguān, qìguān, mìngguān) for non-verbal patients. The Pǔjì fāng pediatric chapter is the major proximate source for the corresponding sections in 薛己 Xuē Jǐ’s Bǎo yīng cuō yào 保嬰撮要 (and his other pediatric works in the Xuēshì yīàn KR3e0070), in 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng’s Yòukē zhǔnshéng 幼科準繩, and in the pediatric sections of the Qīng Yīzōng jīnjiàn KR3e0090.
The present recension is the reprint published in the modern medical collectanea series indexed in the catalog as hxwd, isolating the pediatric chapters for stand-alone use.
Translations and research
No substantial Western translation of this chapter is known. The pediatric corpus of late-imperial China is treated in:
- Hsiung, Ping-chen 熊秉真. 2005. A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. — the principal English-language monograph on premodern Chinese pediatrics; draws on the Pǔ-jì fāng pediatric chapter.
- Hsiung, Ping-chen. 1995. Yōu-yōu chì-zǐ: chuántǒng Zhōngguó qīn-zǐ guān-xì 幼幼赤子：傳統中國親子關係, Taipei: Lián-jīng. The Chinese parallel monograph.
- Hinrichs, T. J., and Linda L. Barnes, eds. 2013. Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press — for the institutional and intellectual setting of Míng pediatric medicine.
For the parent work see KR3e0067.
Links
- Parent work: KR3e0067 Pǔjì fāng 普濟方.
- Wikipedia (Puji Fang): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puji_Fang