Search Results for: Chinese Medical Characters

Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu Volume 1: Chinese Historical Illness Terminology

DicBenCao1

Edited by Paul U. Unschuld & Zhang Zhibin
Hardcover book
ISBN 9780520283954
768 pages, 7.00 x 10.00″

The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518-1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition on Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This first book in a three-volume series analyses the meaning of 4,500 historical illness terms.

About the Editors:

Zhang Zhibin is Professor at the Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director of the Horst-Goertz Endowment Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences at Charite-Medical University Berlin. His previous books include What is Medicine?, Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing.

Chinese Medicine from the Classics: A Beginner’s Guide

ChiMedClaBegGui

By Sandra Hill
Trade paperback book
ISBN 9781872468150

The Huangdi Neijing, the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, is the foundation text of Chinese medicine. This book provides an introduction to the medicine of the Neijing and is a guide to the Monkey Press series ‘Chinese Medicine from the Classics’. It discusses the basic philosophical background of the Neijing, and the influence of the contemporary schools of yin yang and wu xing (five phase, five element) theory. Drawing particularly on the early chapters of the Neijing Suwen, it discusses the functions of the internal organs (zang fu), and goes on to describe the place of the emotions and spiritual aspects within classical medicine. It finally looks at the meridian network from the classical perspective. The text is fully annotated with examples from the Neijing and some of its commentaries, translated from the Chinese by Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée. Key characters are discussed, and the book is illustrated by the calligraphy of the renowned Chinese artist Qu Lei Lei.

About the Author:

Sandra Hill (MA Bac) studied in Japan for several years before traing in acupuncture at ICOM in the UK. She co-founded Monkey Press in 1987 to help bring the Chinese classical medical texts to an English speaking audience.

Praise for Chinese Medicine from the Classics- A Beginner’s Guide

“Sandra Hill has achieved an admirable work with this guide, which is a clear and intelligent introduction to Chinese medicine as expressed in these classical texts.”

-Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée

Jin Gui Yao Lue: Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet -eBook

JinGuiCoverHR

By Zhang Ji (Zhang Zhong Jing)
Translated by Nigel Wiseman & Sabine Wilms
Digital Goods, eBook
ISBN 9780912111919
720 pages

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The Jīn Guì Yào Lǜe (“Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet”), like its sister volume the Shāng Hán Lùn (“On Cold Damage”), is a gem reconstituted from fragments of a lost text called the Shāng Hán Zá Bìng Lùn (“On Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases”) by indisputably the most brilliant medical mind that China ever produced, the Hàn Dynasty physician Zhāng Jī (Zhāng Zhòng Jǐng). Exerting an influence on the development of Chinese medicine unmatched by any other medical scholar, Zhāng integrated the then relatively new theories of systematic correspondence of the Nèijīng and Nànjīng with an already vast practical knowledge knowledge in the use of medicinals. Such was his brilliance that it was not fully recognized by Chinese physicians until centuries later in the Sòng Dynasty, when Zhāng’s combination of theory and practice became the mainstream in Chinese medicine that survived centuries of scrutiny from successive generations of medical scholars and buttressed traditional medicine against the challenge of Western in the twentieth century. Combining theoretic etiologies with detailed diagnosis and skillfully devised treatments, Zhāng’s work has left an indelible print on traditional medicine in China for nearly 2,000 years. A third of the most commonly used formulas in Chinese medical practice today were devised by Zhāng Jī.

The Jīn Guì Yào Lǜe covers diseases other than the external contractions dealt with in the Shāng Hán Lùn, and includes lung diseases, water swelling, dissipation-thirst, impediment (bì), summerheat stroke, mounting diseases, and gynecological diseases, to name just a few. It is presented in 25 chapters, most of which deal with two or three closely related diseases; however the final three chapters cover miscellaneous formulas and foodstuffs. Each chapter includes an introduction to the material, followed by the original lines of the text, which are rendered in simplified Chinese characters, Pīnyīn, and English translation. This is followed by notes to elucidate obscure phrases in the original text, a synopsis of the content of the line, and detailed explanatory commentaries.

Textual History (from the Introduction by Sabine Wilms)

As its title suggests, Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s Shāng Hán Lùn discusses the diagnosis and treatment of cold damage conditions, which are conditions related to external contraction, especially of wind and cold. His Jīn Guì Yào Lüè is thought to reflect that section of the original Shāng Hán Zá Bìng Lùn that was called “miscellaneous diseases” (杂病 zá bìng), basically a catch-all phrase for any conditions which could not be traced to externally contracted evils. The full title of this present text is Jīn Guì Yào Lüè Fāng Lùn, “Essential Prescriptions and Discussions from the Golden Cabinet.”This title tells us several things about the book. First, it is an indication of the value that the author (or more accurately, the person who named the text as such) placed on the book’s content. “Golden Cabinet” refers to a cabinet-like storage box made of gold, hence a place where a person of great wealth would store his or her most valuable items. Second, the text is characterized as containing both “prescriptions” and “discussions,” or in other words, clinical as well as theoretical information. This combination positions it at an interesting fulcrum in the textual history of Chinese medicine, namely the intersection between theoretical classics like the Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng (“Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon”) and Nàn Jīng (“Classic of Difficult Issues”), which were mostly concerned with the flow of qì and blood through the vessels and the correlation of the human body to the macrocosm, and formulary collections like the Qiān Jīn Fāng (“Thousand Gold Pieces Prescriptions”) by Sūn Sī-Miǎo, which primarily matched lists of symptoms to specific formulas without providing any diagnostic or etiological explanation for the rationale behind a treatment. By contrast, the Jīn Guì Yào Lüèincludes detailed diagnostic guidelines and etiological reasoning in addition to instructions for treatment primarily with medicinal formulas (and some references to acupuncture, moxibustion, and other therapeutic modalities). Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng thus created a medical classic with outstanding significance for both theory and practice, centuries before other medical authors attempted to follow in his footsteps during the Sòng period.

Due to the turbulence of its historical times, it is impossible to reconstruct the exact format, content, and organization of Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s work today. Nevertheless, its significance for the history of medicine and its applicability in modern clinical practice has inspired much research, especially in China, to approximate its original form as much as possible on the basis of later reprints, fragments that have been recovered in China and Japan in archaeological sites, and quotations in received texts.

By order of the Sòng Imperial court in the 11th century, both the Shāng Hán Lùn and the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè were included among a small selection of early Chinese medical classics to be collated, annotated, and reissued in woodblock print. This monumental effort was completed by a large editorial team from the Office for the Correction of Medical Texts, which had been established in 1057 CE. While these scholars had access to the ten scrolls of the Shāng Hán Lùn which had been edited by Wáng Shū-Hé, the part on “miscellaneous diseases” had not survived. Instead, they painstakingly had to recreate the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè on the basis of quotations found in other medical classics like the Mài Jīng (“Pulse Canon”), Zhū Bìng Yuán Hòu Lùn (“Origin and Indicators of Disease”), and Qiān Jīn Fāng (“Thousand Gold Pieces Prescriptions”), as well as a summary of Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s work in three scrolls entitled Jīn Guì Yù Hán Yào Luè Fāng (“Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet and Jade Sheath”). These Sòng editors matched the prescriptions with the descriptions of symptoms, arranged the text by disease categories into 25 chapters in three parts, and lastly added select outstanding prescriptions by other physicians of the times, all with the goal of making this text as clinically useful as possible. This Sòng revision has been the standard version of the text ever since, and also the version on which subsequent editions such as this one are based. It is thus important for the discerning reader to keep in mind that we are looking at a Hàn dynasty text that was lost for several centuries and reconstructed, rearranged, and supplemented by Sòng dynasty scholars approximately eight hundred years later.

Praise for Jin Gui Yao Lue: Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet

“Wiseman and Wilms have exquisitely translated the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè. The English rendering is impeccable, precise, and consistent. The detailed commentaries are systematic and comprehensive. Throughout my forty-six years as a clinician I have studied Zhāng Jī’s writings and prescribed formulas from the Shāng Hán Lùn and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè. I hope that this remarkable work in its English translation will help you to draw upon the genius of Zhāng Jī and to understand and utilize the depth of his knowledge of Chinese medicine.”

Miki Shima, OMD, L.Ac., President, Japanese‐American Acupuncture Association; Former Member, California State Acupuncture Examining Committee; Former President, California Acupuncture Association; Author, Expositions on the Eight Extraordinary Vessels; Channel Divergences – Deeper Pathways of the Web; The Medical I Ching: Oracle of the Healer Within; Recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award, American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (2004)

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Paradigm Publications Upcoming Release (2022-2023)

A Chinese Medical Reference: Symptoms, Patterns, Diseases, Acupoints, Medicinals, and Formulas eBook

The English-language literature of Chinese medicine lacks reference materials. Since the very first acupuncture programs decades ago, students have compiled lists of textbook items they need to memorize. Students today still make lists, a somewhat surprising fact in a digital age. A Chinese Medical Reference: Symptoms, Patterns, Diseases, Acupoints, Medicinals, and Formulas is a complete set of lists designed to save all the work. This comprehensive reference work is compiled to the highest professional standards from original Chinese sources, and its digital format ensures easy searchability and maximum affordability.

As the title suggests, A Chinese Medical Reference: Symptoms, Patterns, Diseases, Acupoints, Medicinals, and Formulas presents the key Chinese concepts thematically in six sections, with each concept forming an entry. It presents 320+ symptoms, 130+ patterns, 130+ diseases, 400+ acupoints, 570+ medicinals, and 260+ medicinal formulas. With a total of 1,800 entries, it covers a comprehensive range of concepts, including the most-tested and commonly used, plus all the most-searched items in a course of study.

Throughout, Chinese terms are given in simplified and complex characters, so that they can be found by anyone who knows Chinese. Pinyin is given in accented and unaccented form, so that users can search whether they know the tones or have a system capable of entering tone marks. General terms can be searched by English, acupoints by alphanumeric codes, and medicinals by English and Latin pharmacognostic names.

The material has been drawn from other works. Symptoms, patterns, and diseases come from Chinese Medicine: Theories of Modern Practice, while acupoints, medicinals, and formulas have been extracted from our databases. Those works have all been compiled from Chinese sources, ensuring that students receive information of the same scope and quality as taught in China’s professional medical colleges.

A major problem for students is terminological inconsistencies between English-language authors. One and same concept may be represented by one term in one author and by a different term in another. Even more confusing, one and same term may refer to different concepts depending on the author. A Chinese Medical Reference: Symptoms, Patterns, Diseases, Acupoints, Medicinals, and Formulas avoids this problem with rigorous consistency. Each concept is referred to by a single English term that closely mirrors the Chinese original. Wherever that concept appears, it is always referred to by the same name.

When a concept is referred to by a single term every time it is used, students can develop their understanding of the concept by seeing how it used in different contexts. The digital format, so much more practical than the indexes contained in paper books, allows readers to search through a whole text, find each context, thereby enhancing their understanding. Since the digital versions of other works by Wiseman and his colleagues all use the same terminology, searches can be performed over a wide range of literature, including:

  • Chinese Medicine: The Ideas that Shaped It
  • Chinese Medicine: Theories of Modern Practice
  • Comprehensive Chinese Materia Medica
  • Concise Chinese Materia Medica
  • Fundamentals of Chinese Acupuncture
  • Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine
  • Jīn Guì Yào Lüè
  • Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine
  • Shāng Hán Lùn

It is difficult to emphasize enough how digital information revolutionizes the learning process. Digital searches are far more efficient than look-ups from index entries. Instead of poring over isolated text, students can trace concepts throughout the text they are reading and beyond. Instead of making hand-written notes and indelible color marks on a paper copy, e-books give readers the ability to make editable bookmarks and highlights to personalize their information according to their changing needs. This reduces the need for passive memorization by rote and makes learning an active process of constant investigation.

Symptoms: The symptoms section starts with general conditions and then presents localized conditions from head to toe. This arrangement has the advantage of enhancing the traditional four examinations scheme, whereby certain symptoms of specific loci may appear in more than one of four places. Thus, all urinary symptoms are placed together, as are stool symptoms, even though they might normally be divided among the inspection, listening and smelling, and inquiry examinations in diagnostic textbooks. Each symptom is described in such as a way as to enable students to easily identify it and differentiate it from others. Indication of the patterns or diseases in which each symptom can appear further offers students avenues for further searches to develop their knowledge.

Patterns: The patterns section lists the patterns included in modern Chinese-language diagnostic textbooks. The information provided includes main names, alternate names, key signs, full description, related diseases, pathogenesis, analysis of signs, treatments, combined patterns, and further developments. The content of this section is drawn from Chinese Medicine: Theories of Modern Practice.

Diseases: The diseases section includes many conditions that, though scantily discussed in English language textbooks, are commonly seen in Chinese-language basic theory texts. All 130 commonly presented diseases are included.

Acupoints: The acupoints section includes all 365 channel points, as well a selection of commonly used non-channel points. The information provided for each acupoint includes location (as given in modern textbooks), classical location (as given in premodern literature), local anatomy, actions, indications, stimulus applied, and point categories

Medicinals: The medicinals section includes a broader range of agents than Western students are normally required to master. Items are arranged according to their actions, as in textbooks. The information provided for each item includes Chinese alternate names, properties (nature and flavor), actions and indications, dosage and method of administration, product quality, and production area. Note that the same information can be found in Comprehensive Chinese Materia Medica (Paradigm Publications, 2023), which contains over 6,000 medicinals in alphabetical order.

Formulas: The formulas section is arranged according to actions, as in textbooks. The information for each item includes ingredients, method of preparation, actions, indications, formula rationale (explaining what each ingredient does), and variations. Since individual ingredients can be found in the medicinals section, and the indications can be found in the symptoms, patterns, and diseases sections, students have a vast amount of information at their fingertips in one e-book.

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Paradigm Publications Upcoming Release (2022-2023)

Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine eBook

Containing over 33,000 terms, the Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine is the largest, fully searchable list of Chinese medical terms ever published. It is the only sufficiently comprehensive list of Chinese medical terms to be an ultimate go-to for any translator, student, or clinician. It contains a vast array of general terms, including the 5,000 or more of Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine (Paradigm Publications, 1997). It also contains the 1,500 standard and alternate acupoint names from Grasping the Wind (Paradigm Publications, 1989) and over 10,000 standard and alternate names of medicinals described in the Comprehensive Chinese Materia Medica (Paradigm Publications, coming in 2023) derived from the Zhōng Yào Dà Cí Diǎn.

The present e-book version offers maximum searchability without the need of indexes. Chinese terms are given in simplified and complex characters, so that they can be found by anyone who knows Chinese. Pinyin is given in accented and unaccented form, so that users can search by it whether they know the tones or have a system capable of entering tone marks. General terms can be searched by English, acupoints by alphanumeric codes, and medicinals can be searched by English and Latin pharmacognostic names.

To make for the greatest utility without overly burdening the text, a standard set of graphical indicators are used throughout this and other related e-books. Square brackets ([ ]) indicate elements of terms that can be omitted (such as omissible elements of medicinal names) or notes to Chinese and English terms. A double asterisk (⁑) indicates polysemous medicinal names. A gray sidebar in the left-hand margin indicates a commonly used item.

This dictionary has a history of over thirty years of continual expansion and refinement. It began with a database created while writing Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine (Paradigm Publications, 1985). It was published in the form of Glossary of Chinese Medical Terms (Paradigm Publications in 1990). It was expanded and republished in the form of the English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine (Hunan Science and Technology Press, 1995). And in 2014, after further expansion, it was made available as the Online TCM Dictionary on Paradigm Publications’ website.

These decades of development and publication have given the terms here presented the benefit of other scholars’ contributions, as well as the refinements inspired by public critique. Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine is an invaluable asset for translators and teachers engaged in compiling or presenting information from primary sources. As a bilingual term list, it has met the critical test of actual translations of the classical Chinese medical texts, the Shāng Hán Lùn (Paradigm Publications, 1999) and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè (Paradigm Publications, 2013) Chinese Medicine: Theories of Modern Practice (Paradigm Publications, 2022) shows this terminology to be up to the challenge of presenting the entire theoretical knowledge of professional Chinese medical education.

This e-book version offers translators suggestions for translation problems they come across in their work, without proprietary restrictions and at an extremely low cost. However, the notion that Chinese medicine does not possess a terminology that requires a corresponding terminology in English and other languages has not faded from the Western world. In view of this, the present work also includes an introduction explaining issues surrounding terminology and translation.

Advanced Tung Style Acupuncture: Nephrology, Urology & Andrology

AdvTunAcuNepUro

By Tung Ching-Chang & James Maher
Spiral-bound book
ISBN 9780975909645
365 pages, 8.50 x 11.00″

This series of books presents copious acupuncture prescriptions gathered from the English and Chinese language Tung Acupuncture literature in the translator’s personal library. More than 15 different sources were referenced (several currently out of print). He has compiled, collated, and translated all the prescriptions proffered by Wei-Chieh Young, Min-Chuan Wang, Palden Carson, Robert Chu, Esther Su, Richard Tan, Miriam Lee, and Susan Johnson, and applied accompanying diagrams for each clinical entity to facilitate their application. Included are: author-specific point locations, needling instructions, contraindications and, when available, clinical comments, lifestyle modifications, etc., all direct clinical experiences with Master Tung’s Acupuncture.

Tung Style Acupuncture was brought to Taiwan from mainland China by Master Tung Ching-Chang in 1949 when he left China with the Kuomingtang (KMT) army under General Chiang Kai-Shek. His acupuncture style was thus spared from the synthesis of the ‘New Medicine’ engendered as a consequence of the 1958 dictum by P.R.C. Chairman Mao Ze-Dong to create a ‘New Medicine’, i.e. to unify the ‘best’ parts of Western and Chinese medicine. Ergo, the Tung Style escaped the efforts to compel acupuncture to conform to the model espoused by the TCM herbalists who had been assigned to the task of inventing this ‘New Medicine’ – forcing the proverbial ‘square peg into a round hole’.

As a system, Tung Style Acupuncture does not necessitate the use of the diagnostic methods or terminology adopted by contemporary, herbalist-driven, TCM acupuncture; this renders the Tung Style Acupuncture well suited for use by non-TCM trained clinicians. Furthermore, the clinical results obtained using the Tung Style Acupuncture often far surpass those achieved through the use of TCM acupuncture, especially in the West. This is, in part, because Western patients seldom conform to an exact mold of a single TCM pattern. Western patients typically present with a myriad of signs, symptoms, and western-biomedical diagnoses, which can often leave the TCM based clinician somewhat bewildered as to where to begin; this is particularly true in a multidisciplinary, referral based, setting.

Thus, Tung Style Acupuncture is a unique and highly effective form of authentic Chinese acupuncture. The style has been proven clinically very effective and is sought out worldwide. The style is well suited to virtually all clinicians. This text series should not be construed as introductory texts or as ‘primers’ in the acupuncture of Master Tung Ching-Chang, nor as preparatory texts on the TCM theories governing each specialty.
This volume contains over 350 pages with over 275 prescriptions drawn from the Chinese Tung Acupuncture literature. More than 15 different sources were referenced, compiling all the nephrology, urology, and andrology prescriptions with accompanying diagrams for each disorder/disease to facilitate application. Included are point locations, needling instructions, contraindications, clinical comments, herbal suggestions, and lifestyle modifications based on clinical experiences with Master Tung’s Acupuncture.

The main body of this text is divided into two sections. Section 1 addresses the application of Master Tung’s Acupuncture to specific disorders of the upper and lower urinary tract involving the kidneys and urinary bladder in both sexes. The text includes disorders involving not only the actual anatomical substrates but also the broader TCM organ/channel functions of the Kidney and Bladder. Section 2 is concerned with maladies unique to the male such as balanitis, phallalgia, cryptorchidism, orchitis, impotence, premature ejaculation, and erectile dysfunction. The appendix contains the Tung Style Acupuncture points used in this volume, with text pages referenced, as well as the traditional Chinese characters for those points.

Manual of Acupuncture: Second Edition

ManAcuDea

Once in a great while an extraordinary book is published that sets an entirely new standard in its field. A Manual of Acupuncture is just such a book. Painstakingly researched by Peter Deadman, editor-in-chief of The Journal of Chinese Medicine, and colleagues Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker, this book is quickly becoming the primary reference in English for the study of acupuncture points and channels.

Introductory chapters describe and illustrate the channels and collaterals, the various categories of points, and methods of selection, location, and needling. Ensuing chapters present each of the points of the 14 channels as well as the extra (miscellaneous) points, identified by their English and pinyin names, and Chinese characters. Each point is located in accordance with the most exacting anatomical standards to be found in any Western textbook.

For each point there is a dedicated drawing, followed by regional body drawings. The quality of the 500 drawings is exceptional, setting this book apart from other point reference books. There are also extensive historical commentaries on the evolution of many of the points, plus practical pointers for finding and needling them, and cautionary information about what to avoid.

All of the points are indexed by their English and pinyin names. There is also an index identifying every part of the body reached by each of the channels, and separate indices of point indications listed according to both TCM and biomedical symptoms.

  • Physiology & pathology of the channels & collaterals (primary, divergent, extraordinary, connecting, and cutaneous regions)
  • Location, actions, indications, precautions & combinations for each of the points 500 anatomical drawings of individual & regional point locations
  • Historical commentaries on properties & combinations of points
  • Special point categories
  • Needling methods
  • Glossary
  • Multiple indexes for points & indications
    General index

Painstakingly researched, written, and illustrated over a period of seven years, this book may well become one of the primary reference sources in the West for the study of acupuncture points and channels. The book contains chapter-length descriptions of the channels and collaterals, point categories and locations, and point selection and needling methods. In addition, it includes illustrations and text descriptions of all primary, extraordinary, divergent, luo- connecting and sinew channels, and individual and regional illustrations of the locations for each of the 14 channel and extra channel points (in English, Chinese and Pinyin). The material for each point includes practical identification of point actions, extensive lists of point indications drawn from classical and modern texts, in-depth commentaries explaining the principal historical and modern applications, and classical prescriptions that demonstrate point combination. There are extensive indexes, including one dedicated to point indications. Finally, students may wish to note that this text required reading for U.S. licensure examinations.

Praise for the Manual of Acupuncture:

“The definitive, most authoritative book on points in English: scholarly, complete, and detailed.”

-Giovanni Maciocia

Jin Gui Yao Lue: Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet

JinGuiCoverHR

By Zhang Ji (Zhang Zhong Jing)
Translated by Nigel Wiseman & Sabine Wilms
Hardcover book
ISBN 9780912111919
720 pages

The Jīn Guì Yào Lǜe (“Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet”), like its sister volume the Shāng Hán Lùn (“On Cold Damage”), is a gem reconstituted from fragments of a lost text called the Shāng Hán Zá Bìng Lùn (“On Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases”) by indisputably the most brilliant medical mind that China ever produced, the Hàn Dynasty physician Zhāng Jī (Zhāng Zhòng Jǐng). Exerting an influence on the development of Chinese medicine unmatched by any other medical scholar, Zhāng integrated the then relatively new theories of systematic correspondence of the Nèijīng and Nànjīng with an already vast practical knowledge in the use of medicinals. Such was his brilliance that it was not fully recognized by Chinese physicians until centuries later in the Sòng Dynasty, when Zhāng’s combination of theory and practice became the mainstream in Chinese medicine that survived centuries of scrutiny from successive generations of medical scholars and buttressed traditional medicine against the challenge of Western in the twentieth century. Combining theoretic etiologies with detailed diagnosis and skillfully devised treatments, Zhāng’s work has left an indelible print on traditional medicine in China for nearly 2,000 years. A third of the most commonly used formulas in Chinese medical practice today were devised by Zhāng Jī.

The Jīn Guì Yào Lǜe covers diseases other than the external contractions dealt with in the Shāng Hán Lùn, and includes lung diseases, water swelling, dissipation-thirst, impediment (bì), summerheat stroke, mounting diseases, and gynecological diseases, to name just a few. It is presented in 25 chapters, most of which deal with two or three closely related diseases; however the final three chapters cover miscellaneous formulas and foodstuffs. Each chapter includes an introduction to the material, followed by the original lines of the text, which are rendered in simplified Chinese characters, Pīnyīn, and English translation. This is followed by notes to elucidate obscure phrases in the original text, a synopsis of the content of the line, and detailed explanatory commentaries.

Textual History (from the Introduction by Sabine Wilms)

As its title suggests, Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s Shāng Hán Lùn discusses the diagnosis and treatment of cold damage conditions, which are conditions related to external contraction, especially of wind and cold. His Jīn Guì Yào Lüè is thought to reflect that section of the original Shāng Hán Zá Bìng Lùn that was called “miscellaneous diseases” (杂病 zá bìng), basically a catch-all phrase for any conditions which could not be traced to externally contracted evils. The full title of this present text is Jīn Guì Yào Lüè Fāng Lùn, “Essential Prescriptions and Discussions from the Golden Cabinet.”This title tells us several things about the book. First, it is an indication of the value that the author (or more accurately, the person who named the text as such) placed on the book’s content. “Golden Cabinet” refers to a cabinet-like storage box made of gold, hence a place where a person of great wealth would store his or her most valuable items. Second, the text is characterized as containing both “prescriptions” and “discussions,” or in other words, clinical as well as theoretical information. This combination positions it at an interesting fulcrum in the textual history of Chinese medicine, namely the intersection between theoretical classics like the Huáng Dì Nèi Jīng (“Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon”) and Nàn Jīng (“Classic of Difficult Issues”), which were mostly concerned with the flow of qì and blood through the vessels and the correlation of the human body to the macrocosm, and formulary collections like the Qiān Jīn Fāng (“Thousand Gold Pieces Prescriptions”) by Sūn Sī-Miǎo, which primarily matched lists of symptoms to specific formulas without providing any diagnostic or etiological explanation for the rationale behind a treatment. By contrast, the Jīn Guì Yào Lüèincludes detailed diagnostic guidelines and etiological reasoning in addition to instructions for treatment primarily with medicinal formulas (and some references to acupuncture, moxibustion, and other therapeutic modalities). Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng thus created a medical classic with outstanding significance for both theory and practice, centuries before other medical authors attempted to follow in his footsteps during the Sòng period.

Due to the turbulence of its historical times, it is impossible to reconstruct the exact format, content, and organization of Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s work today. Nevertheless, its significance for the history of medicine and its applicability in modern clinical practice has inspired much research, especially in China, to approximate its original form as much as possible on the basis of later reprints, fragments that have been recovered in China and Japan in archaeological sites, and quotations in received texts.

By order of the Sòng Imperial court in the 11th century, both the Shāng Hán Lùn and the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè were included among a small selection of early Chinese medical classics to be collated, annotated, and reissued in woodblock print. This monumental effort was completed by a large editorial team from the Office for the Correction of Medical Texts, which had been established in 1057 CE. While these scholars had access to the ten scrolls of the Shāng Hán Lùn which had been edited by Wáng Shū-Hé, the part on “miscellaneous diseases” had not survived. Instead, they painstakingly had to recreate the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè on the basis of quotations found in other medical classics like the Mài Jīng (“Pulse Canon”), Zhū Bìng Yuán Hòu Lùn (“Origin and Indicators of Disease”), and Qiān Jīn Fāng (“Thousand Gold Pieces Prescriptions”), as well as a summary of Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng’s work in three scrolls entitled Jīn Guì Yù Hán Yào Luè Fāng (“Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet and Jade Sheath”). These Sòng editors matched the prescriptions with the descriptions of symptoms, arranged the text by disease categories into 25 chapters in three parts, and lastly added select outstanding prescriptions by other physicians of the times, all with the goal of making this text as clinically useful as possible. This Sòng revision has been the standard version of the text ever since, and also the version on which subsequent editions such as this one are based. It is thus important for the discerning reader to keep in mind that we are looking at a Hàn dynasty text that was lost for several centuries and reconstructed, rearranged, and supplemented by Sòng dynasty scholars approximately eight hundred years later.

Praise for Jin Gui Yao Lue: Essential Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet

“Wiseman and Wilms have exquisitely translated the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè. The English rendering is impeccable, precise, and consistent. The detailed commentaries are systematic and comprehensive. Throughout my forty-six years as a clinician I have studied Zhāng Jī’s writings and prescribed formulas from the Shāng Hán Lùn and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè. I hope that this remarkable work in its English translation will help you to draw upon the genius of Zhāng Jī and to understand and utilize the depth of his knowledge of Chinese medicine.”

Miki Shima, OMD, L.Ac., President, Japanese‐American Acupuncture Association; Former Member, California State Acupuncture Examining Committee; Former President, California Acupuncture Association; Author, Expositions on the Eight Extraordinary Vessels; Channel Divergences – Deeper Pathways of the Web; The Medical I Ching: Oracle of the Healer Within; Recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award, American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (2004)

Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu Volume II

DicBenCaoII

By Paul U. Unschuld & Hua Linfu
Hardcover book
ISBN 9780520291966

The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518-1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gan mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,6000,000 characters. This second book in a three-volume series verifies and localizes all 2,158 geographical and associated administrative names referred to in the Ben Cao gang mu in connection with the origin and use of pharmaceutical substances.

About the Editors:

Hua Linfu is Professor at the Institute of Qing History, Renmin University of China.

Paul D. Buell is an independent scholar living in Seattle, Washington.

Paul U. Unschuld is Professor and Director of the Horst-Goertz Endowment Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences at Charite-Medical University Berlin. His Previous books include Huang di Nei Jing Ling Shu: The Ancient Classic on Needle Therapy and What is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing.

Extraordinary Fu

ExtFuLar

By Claude Larre & Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee
Trade paperback book
ISBN 9781872468235
222 pages, 5.50 x 8.50″

Claude Larre’s visionary understanding of the philosophical and cultural background of classical Chinese medicine and Elisabeth Rochat’s thorough knowledge of the Chinese medical classics provide a unique insight into the foundations of Chinese medicine. Here they turn their attention to the six extraordinary fu: brain, marrow, bones, mai, gallbladder, and uterus.

The authors argue that like the eight extraordinary meridians, the set of six extraordinary fu connects us with a level within the human being which is more essential than that encompassed by the regular zang and fu. Understanding their six unique natures will bring us closer to the mystery of an individual’s vitality, and closer to what is extraordinary, surprising, and wonderful about life itself.

This book, transcribed and edited from lectures held in London, discusses each in detail, and explains their common function as fu which store essences. Much emphasis is placed on classical sources and commentaries and upon gaining familiarity with the meaning of the key Chinese characters.