Early Chinese Medical Literature by Harper Donald;

Author:Harper, Donald;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

1The names of the fifty-two ailment categories that form the main contents of MSI.E are listed in four registers. Throughout MSI.E these names (or slight variations) appear as headings written just above the first column of the first recipe in a given ailment category. When there is more than one recipe in an ailment category, subsequent recipes are usually headed by yi — (another).

1The recipes for this ailment category as well as for the next four ailment categories are missing in the text.

2Judging from MSI.E.6, 12, 17, and 18—which all refer specifically to “blade wounds” or “metal wounds”—this category is mainly concerned with stab wounds and accidental cuts. The usual term for such wounds in Han and post-Han medical nomenclature is jin chuang 金 創 (metal injuries). A recipe manual for treating “metal injuries” is listed in the Hanshu bibliographic treatise (Hanshu, 30.80a); and the Wuwei recipes include “metal injuries” (WWYJ: 2b–3a, 8a–b).

1Gao 膏 (lard) and zhi 脂 (suet) are the two standard terms in the Mawangdui medical manuscripts for animal fat. Li Zhongwen (1980) examines the use of both words in MSI.E and concludes that their meaning corresponds to the definition in SW, 4B.36b. Gao is the soft fat from animals without horns, principally the pig (i.e. lard); zhi is the hard fat from horned animals, principally oxen and sheep (i.e. suet).

2Jiao 椒 refers to several species in the genus Zanthoxylum. MSI.E occasionally specifies Shu jiao 蜀 椒, which is the drug name listed in BC.

3The standard practice in MSI.E is to form medicine balls which are crushed before using; MSI.E.151 provides the only example of swallowing the balls directly. Balls are also swallowed in MSIII.71.

4Qu/*gjug 朐 is glossed in SW, 4B.33b, as “strips of dried meat.” I doubt the graph has this meaning in MSI.E.3 and suspect that it is a loan for a herbal drug name. One possibility is ju/*kjug 蒟. Ju is glossed in SW, 1B.31b, as “a fruit”; and is also mentioned as the chief ingredient of a spicy sauce produced in Shu 蜀 in Shiji, 116.2b. Hui-lin Li presents evidence for identifying ju as the word for black pepper (Piper nigrum) in Former Han times (1979: 46–53).

5Da 荅 (small bean) is the adzuki bean, also called xiaodou 小 豆 and chi xiaodou 赤 小 豆 (see chida). In MSI.E.3, “small bean” is used as a relative measure of size in drug preparation. A similar usage occurs in the Wuwei recipes, which mention making medicine balls “the size of chidou 赤 豆” (WWYJ: 3b). The use of the adzuki bean as a metrological standard in early medicine is confirmed by Tao Hongjing, who explains that references in old medical recipes to a measurement “like a small bean” are to the chi xiaodou of his day, and that the measurement is equivalent to three large hemp seeds (GM, 1.38).

6Ye 佁 is used regularly in MSI.E to denote the fine pounding of a drug. My literal translation “smith” is based on Akahori (1985), who argues that ye—which means to cast metal according to SW, 11B.

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