Clinical Essentials

Clinical Essentials is a clinical work compiled by the veteran Hubei physician Zhang Mengnong (1904–1977) from more than fifty years of clinical experience. In daily practice the author jotted down cases and formulas that produced good results; over the years these accumulated, and he eventually selected over one hundred case records and reorganized them under the framework of "investigating causes through pattern differentiation and treating according to pattern identification." The manuscript was completed between 1972 and 1974, and the author, then in his eighties, revised it repeatedly and added explanations of formula meanings. The book takes diseases and patterns as its outline and is divided into several sections covering internal medicine, external medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, and difficult cases: internal medicine discusses in turn external pathogenic infections, respiratory, digestive, urogenital, psychoneurological, and miscellaneous diseases, impediment patterns, and various pains; external medicine covers sores and ulcers, eczema, scrofula, goiter and tumors, breast diseases, snakebite, and hemostasis for trauma; gynecology is divided into menstruation and leukorrhea, and pregnancy and childbirth; pediatrics into convulsions, malnutrition, measles, and externally contracted miscellaneous diseases; and a final section presents difficult cases such as dysphagia, gastric cancer, and abdominal masses. Under each disease and pattern, the book separately describes the manifestations, causes, treatment methods, formulas and drugs, usage, formula meaning, and commentary, followed by case records; the commentary sets forth the author's distinctive views on causes and mechanisms, key points of pattern differentiation, and the use of formulas and drugs. The book is concise and easy to understand, hence the name "Essentials." It was first published in 1981 and reprinted in 2006 as one of the third series of the Reprint Series of Famous Modern Veteran Chinese Medicine Physicians; it is a practical reference for studying clinical pattern-differentiation thinking and the use of formulas and drugs in Chinese medicine.