Inner Canon Difficulties and Interpretations

Author: Wang Min, Li Guoqing, Wang Fei
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-12-01
Features: The Inner Canon is one of the earliest classical medical texts in China and a must-read for medical practitioners. However, due to its ancient composition, archaic language, and repeated copying and printing over time, it contains numerous errors, leaving many passages unresolved, difficult to understand, subtle insights hidden, and ambiguities abound. In light of this, this book has been compiled to provide a concise and practical reference for faculty, students, and researchers in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) universities, as well as other practitioners of Chinese and Western medicine. The book is organized according to the 162 chapters of The Inner Canon, divided into the upper part Suwen and the lower part Lingshu, with a total of 721 difficult and ambiguous passages. Each chapter begins with a brief explanation of its title. For each difficult passage, the following three sections are provided: [Original Text], [Ambiguity], and [Explanation].
[Original Text] includes the relevant segment of the text in which the passage appears. [Ambiguity] gathers interpretations from ancient and modern medical scholars since Quan Yuanqi. [Explanation] synthesizes and analyzes various viewpoints, (based on) the linguistic context of the passage, and incorporates the authors' research findings and clinical experiences in The Inner Canon to propose their academic perspectives, offering textual and medical insights to clarify doubts for readers.
The original text of Suwen in this book is selected from the 1963 edition of Huangdi Neijing Suwen published by the People's Medical Publishing House, while the original text of Lingshu is selected from the 1982 edition of Lingshu Jing Jiaoshi also published by the People's Medical Publishing House.