Imperial Canon of Medical Classics (Volume 1, 2, 3)

Author: Qing Wu Qian
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-11-01
Features: Medicine is primarily a clinical discipline, where life and death are at stake, and thus must be handled with utmost caution. Since Zhang Ji's Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases in the Eastern Han Dynasty, medicine has flourished. By the Qing Dynasty, there were countless medical works, with various schools and doctrines, good and bad mixed together. Practitioners often held onto their own views, often deviating from the great principles of the sages, abandoning methods for formulas, harming themselves and others. To provide a framework for practitioners, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty ordered the Imperial Medical College to compile this comprehensive clinical medical collection under the leadership of Wu Qian and others, aiming to clarify the origins of medical practices and establish standardized guidelines. At that time, all medical books were collected in the Imperial Medical College, where Wu Qian, Liu Yude, and others [classified them, deleted the redundant and, selected the essence, revealed the hidden depths, and supplemented the incomplete parts], ultimately completing two editions. One was a concise version for beginners, while this book is the comprehensive and extensive one. Its content ranges from Zhang Zhongjing's Treatise on Cold Damage to the Essentials of Orthopedics, covering all departments and specialties. As it highlights the profound applications of ancient wisdom and opens the right path for medical beginners, it has benefited the times and set an example for later generations, making it a reference for experienced practitioners. As the only clinical medical collection compiled by the state and exclusively for advanced medical professionals, its significance and value have not diminished over more than two hundred years. Given that studying ancient texts remains a fundamental and compulsory part of traditional Chinese medicine education, and that readers desire direct access to the original texts, our publishing house has specially reproduced the true copies from the Wenyuan Pavilion edition of the Siku Quanshu as the base for printing, to serve the readers. For convenience, a new table of contents has been compiled, and the Introduction has been merged into the first volume to form the preface.