Abstract
This case holds a number of interesting issues. The first is the fact that the brother of the patient raises a similarity between his brother’s case to another case recorded in Xu’s book. It is unclear how this is possible since these cases were neither published nor public knowledge. One possibility is that some of Xu’s cases became famous among the people as great successes and thus the reference. Another possibility is that this may be a literary tool used by Xu to raises the comparison between somewhat similar cases to stress the difference to his audience. If it is a literary tool, then, it means that Xu inserted this reference on purpose. This means that he thought about its role and he had a specific intention for placing it in this case. He may have thought that this was a way to show the reader that his cases were so famous that other patients or their family heard about them.
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Notes
- 1.
Here Xu Shuwei is using a rather uncommon character during the Song – ran 染. Angela Leung has discussed the notion of contagion in a recent paper claiming that ran, which literally means to dye, was used in ancient China in compound words (i.e., words made up of two or more characters) that conveyed notions such as transmission, infection, or even contagion (Leung 2010, p. 26). Xu uses this character only twice in his ninety case histories, here and in case number 86.
- 2.
The three characters li dafu 李大夫 poses somewhat of a puzzle. It seems that these characters can be translated in one of two ways. First, it may be a reference to case #74 in this collection. There Xu Shuwei treats a patient named Li Zhen dafu 李琛大夫. Second, it may be a general reference to official surnamed Li. In this case it may refer to the military official mentioned in case #6 above, who Xu also diagnosed as suffering from Yang Brightness manifestation type (Zhao Lancai 2012 suggests similar interpretation). It is important to note that the two characters dafu 大夫 do not mean ‘doctor’ during the twelfth century (more precisely in 1130, the date of the case). During the Song, probably but not definitely the Northern Song, dafu was set as an official medical title. After the Song, 大夫 became another way to refer to doctors in the Northern half of China, whereas langzhong 郎中 was the way to refer to doctors in the south.
- 3.
- 4.
Xu Shuwei in writing this case history probably had a copying error. He did not have this error, however, when he quoted, almost verbatim, this exact section in the Shanghan baizheng ge, syndrome 32, p. 15–16. In both cases he was drawing from the Treatise line 233 (辨陽明脈證并治, line 58), see Mitchell, Ye, and Wiseman 1999, pp. 354; Yu 1997, p. 70. Therefore, 蜜兌 is a reference to Fried Honey Guiding Method 蜜煎導法, see Zhongyi da cidian, 2nd ed., p. 1913. In this treatment suppositories are made from warmed honey and inserted into the rectum. This treatment also appears in cases 14 and 82 below, syndromes 4 and 89 in Shanghan baizheng ge (p. 6 and 33), as well as in Xu’s formulary, Puji benshi fang, juan 8, p. 144.
- 5.
Here he refers to the two cases of Yang Brightness disorders recorded in the previous case and in this one.
- 6.
In translating these two characters I am drawing from a Song dynasty text titled Collections of Talks from the Iron Mountains Surrounding This Mundane World (Tiewei shan congtan 鐵圍山叢談), juan 3, pp. 42.
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Goldschmidt, A. (2019). Case Number 7. In: Medical Practice in Twelfth-century China – A Translation of Xu Shuwei’s Ninety Discussions [Cases] on Cold Damage Disorders. Archimedes, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06103-6_8
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