Yīzōng jīnjiàn · Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué 醫宗金鑑·婦科心法要訣
Heart-Method Essentials for Women’s Medicine by 吳謙 (奉敕撰) and 劉裕鐸 (奉敕撰), under imperial commission
About the work
The Fùkē xīnfǎ yàojué 婦科心法要訣 (6 juàn) is the women’s-medicine chapter of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn compendium (KR3e0090 / KR3eu016). It systematises late-Míng / early-Qīng women’s-medicine practice in the imperial mnemonic-verse-and-commentary format, organised by the established eight categorical gates inherited from 陳自明 Chén Zìmíng’s Fùrén dàquán liáng fāng via 薛己 Xuē Jǐ’s annotated edition (cf. KR3eu008) and 王肯堂 Wáng Kěntáng’s Nǚkē zhǔnshéng (KR3eu014): menstrual regulation, miscellaneous diseases, seeking offspring, prenatal education, pregnancy, the lying-in month, difficult births, post-natal care.
Abstract
The chapter is one of the principal Qīng codifications of the women’s-medicine literature; its verse-mnemonic format was the standard imperial-academy teaching vehicle for the specialty. The imperial editors’ balanced doctrinal stance — neither rigidly warming-tonifying nor cold-cooling — is particularly visible here, in contrast to the polar Xuē-school vs. Dān-xī-school positions of the 16th century. Both schools are presented and their prescription strategies offered as alternatives keyed to specific patient-presentations.
Composition window 1742–1749. For the parent compendium see KR3e0090 / KR3eu016; cf. duplicate entry KR3eu032.
Translations and research
- Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press — treats the Qīng women’s-medicine tradition culminating in the Yīzōng jīn-jiàn.
- Bray, Francesca. 1997. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Wú Yī-lì 吳一立 (= Wu Yi-Li). 2010. Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.