Dan tai yu an 丹臺玉案 [The Red Platform and the Jade Desk]
- 1660
1660. (title at the beginning of the text) [or] Yi xue ru men dan tai yu an 醫學入門 [An Introduction to Medicine: The Red Platform and the Jade Desk] (title on cover page). 73 woodcut illus. Six juan in six vols. 8vo, bamboo paper (a few leaves missing from Preface in the first vol.), new wrappers, new stitching. [China]: Wu feng lou 五鳳樓, [1660].
Second edition of this influential medical work. “The book assembles material from [Huangdi] neijing [黃帝]內經 [The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon], Nanjing 難經 [The Classic of Difficult Issues] and Zhang Zhongjing 張仲景, Liu Hejian 劉河間, Zhu Danxi 朱丹溪, and Li Dongyuan 李東垣, excerpting their essentials and deleting the obtuse and contradictory parts” (Wang, p. 103).
Our work contains theoretical discussions as well as recipes. The section on women’s medicine, for example, opens with an abstract discussion of the origin of the male in the qian trigram of the Yijing 易經 [Change Classic] and of the female in the kun trigram. The discussion then becomes more concrete, with a description of the stages of pregnancy. This is followed with a note on taking the pulse, followed in turn by a list of prescriptions. One prescription is for a “liquid remedy for adjusting the menses and stabilizing the blood. It is to be administered when the color of the menstrual discharge is light and it is thick and sticky, accompanied by a pain in the abdomen.” This recipe contains ten ingredients, including red tangerine peel, peeled herbaceous peony root, and the root of the three-nerved spicebush. There are also lists of medications and foodstuffs that women should not ingest when pregnant. For example, eating crab might lead to transverse presentation of the fetus. Birth with transverse presentation is separately covered in a note. Post-natal issues are covered as well, including an outbreak of malaria (as can happen in the seventh and eighth lunar months, we read), post-natal cold damage disease, and incessant bleeding.
Pediatric medicine is discussed after gynecology, in the last volume of the work. As with the section on gynecology, this section starts with a general discussion: “The illnesses of men and women can be ascertained by asking questions,” but “a small child, while still being carried in the arms, might suffer but not be able to express it.” Alternative methods were necessary, such as observing the child’s face. An illustration of a child’s face with the different parts marked accompanies the discussion. As with gynecology, numerous prescriptions are also listed in the area of pediatrics.
Sun Wenyin was from Xiuning in Anhui in central China. Sickly as a child, he read the Change Classic and recited classical Chinese poetry, paying considerable attention to how to nurture a healthy life. Sun advocated that nutrition should be the first priority, with prescription medications coming second (Ding & Wu, p. 54).
Regarding the writing and printing history of our book, Sun writes in the Preface that he had worked on collecting material for the book for 20 years. Then, “the book was finished in the bingzi year of the Ming [1636]; I printed it [in 1638, judging by the dates of the Prefaces to the first edition] and showed my friends of a similar inclination. After the destruction of war that accompanied the change of the cauldrons [i.e., the Manchu conquest of the Ming], only one or two blocks remained.” The blocks thus had to be re-carved, creating a second edition of the work.
Our copy appears to be missing a few leaves of the Preface, which ends mid-sentence and without a date. The Princeton University copy is from the same edition, and it is dated to 1660 (Shunzhi 17). Our book does not observe the taboo for the character xuan 玄, so we know that it must have been printed before 1661, when the Kangxi emperor Xuanye 玄燁 (r. 1661-1722) ascended to the throne.
Very good set, occasional stains and split fore-edge folds, preserved in a new cloth-backed dropbox.
❧ Ding Qing’ai 丁青艾 & Wu Housheng 伍后胜, eds., Yangsheng baijian da cidian 养生保健大辞典 (Dalian: Dalian chubanshe, 1997); Wang Peng, Anhui Zhongyi guji zongmu tiyao 安徽中醫古籍總目提要 (Hefei: Anhui kexue jishi chubanshe, 2021).
Second edition of this influential medical work. “The book assembles material from [Huangdi] neijing [黃帝]內經 [The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon], Nanjing 難經 [The Classic of Difficult Issues] and Zhang Zhongjing 張仲景, Liu Hejian 劉河間, Zhu Danxi 朱丹溪, and Li Dongyuan 李東垣, excerpting their essentials and deleting the obtuse and contradictory parts” (Wang, p. 103).
Our work contains theoretical discussions as well as recipes. The section on women’s medicine, for example, opens with an abstract discussion of the origin of the male in the qian trigram of the Yijing 易經 [Change Classic] and of the female in the kun trigram. The discussion then becomes more concrete, with a description of the stages of pregnancy. This is followed with a note on taking the pulse, followed in turn by a list of prescriptions. One prescription is for a “liquid remedy for adjusting the menses and stabilizing the blood. It is to be administered when the color of the menstrual discharge is light and it is thick and sticky, accompanied by a pain in the abdomen.” This recipe contains ten ingredients, including red tangerine peel, peeled herbaceous peony root, and the root of the three-nerved spicebush. There are also lists of medications and foodstuffs that women should not ingest when pregnant. For example, eating crab might lead to transverse presentation of the fetus. Birth with transverse presentation is separately covered in a note. Post-natal issues are covered as well, including an outbreak of malaria (as can happen in the seventh and eighth lunar months, we read), post-natal cold damage disease, and incessant bleeding.
Pediatric medicine is discussed after gynecology, in the last volume of the work. As with the section on gynecology, this section starts with a general discussion: “The illnesses of men and women can be ascertained by asking questions,” but “a small child, while still being carried in the arms, might suffer but not be able to express it.” Alternative methods were necessary, such as observing the child’s face. An illustration of a child’s face with the different parts marked accompanies the discussion. As with gynecology, numerous prescriptions are also listed in the area of pediatrics.
Sun Wenyin was from Xiuning in Anhui in central China. Sickly as a child, he read the Change Classic and recited classical Chinese poetry, paying considerable attention to how to nurture a healthy life. Sun advocated that nutrition should be the first priority, with prescription medications coming second (Ding & Wu, p. 54).
Regarding the writing and printing history of our book, Sun writes in the Preface that he had worked on collecting material for the book for 20 years. Then, “the book was finished in the bingzi year of the Ming [1636]; I printed it [in 1638, judging by the dates of the Prefaces to the first edition] and showed my friends of a similar inclination. After the destruction of war that accompanied the change of the cauldrons [i.e., the Manchu conquest of the Ming], only one or two blocks remained.” The blocks thus had to be re-carved, creating a second edition of the work.
Our copy appears to be missing a few leaves of the Preface, which ends mid-sentence and without a date. The Princeton University copy is from the same edition, and it is dated to 1660 (Shunzhi 17). Our book does not observe the taboo for the character xuan 玄, so we know that it must have been printed before 1661, when the Kangxi emperor Xuanye 玄燁 (r. 1661-1722) ascended to the throne.
Very good set, occasional stains and split fore-edge folds, preserved in a new cloth-backed dropbox.
❧ Ding Qing’ai 丁青艾 & Wu Housheng 伍后胜, eds., Yangsheng baijian da cidian 养生保健大辞典 (Dalian: Dalian chubanshe, 1997); Wang Peng, Anhui Zhongyi guji zongmu tiyao 安徽中醫古籍總目提要 (Hefei: Anhui kexue jishi chubanshe, 2021).
Details
Title
Dan tai yu an 丹臺玉案 [The Red Platform and the Jade Desk]
Author
SUN, Wenyin 孫文胤
Condition
Unknown
Date
1660