Classic Medical Classics: The Effective Prescriptions for World Physicians

Author: (Yuan) Wei Yilin (Original Author), Xu Jingsheng, Wang Xiaotian (Editors)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Shi Yi De Xiao Fang is a renowned prescription book compiled by Wei Yilin of the Yuan Dynasty, and the only surviving work of the Wei family. It was first published in the fifth year of the Zhiheng era of the Yuan Dynasty (1345 AD). Wei Yilin, styled Dazhai, was a native of Nanfeng, Jiangxi, in the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in 1277 and died in 1347. The Wei family had been practicing medicine for five generations, covering various specialties, with particular expertise in orthopedics, skin diseases, and oral medicine. Deeply troubled by the vastness and difficulty of ancient medical formulas, he compiled this book over a decade using the method of "following ancient formulas while incorporating family traditions," organized according to the thirteen medical categories established in the Yuan Dynasty. The book consists of nineteen main volumes, supplemented by a section on Sun Zhenren (Simaoliang)’s health-preserving methods (the twenty-first volume), hence the name Shi Yi De Xiao Fang. This book includes diseases from various branches of traditional Chinese medicine, such as internal medicine, external medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedics, and ophthalmology. It contains over 3,300 medical formulas, preserving many nearly lost ancient effective prescriptions, such as the eight secret formulas for treating edema. For this edition, the original printing from the fifth year of the Zhiheng era of the Yuan Dynasty was used as the base, with corrections based on the vertical, traditional character edition published by Shanghai Science and Technology Press in September 1964, among other versions. For the convenience of readers, some brief annotations have been added, and Pinyin pronunciations have been provided for difficult characters, directly following the relevant words in the text and enclosed in parentheses.