Methods of the Shanghan Formulas

Methods of the Shanghan Formulas is a compilation of the formulas in the Treatise on Cold Damage (Shanghan Lun) edited by the Qing dynasty physician Bao Yuhua (courtesy name Taochu, sobriquet Bairan Sou, a native of Shanghang, Fujian, 1847–1908). Originally titled Wuwang Ji Jijue Fang, it was later included in the first collection of the Baoshi Yizong and published alongside Treatise on Cold Damage: Chapters and Sections, Treatise on Cold Damage: Tables, Lectures on the Treatise on Cold Damage, and Lectures on the Formulas of the Treatise on Cold Damage. The book follows the original order of the Song edition of the Treatise on Cold Damage, extracting one by one the formula name, composition, dosage, decoction and administration methods, and contraindications of each formula in the text, and adding a serial number above each formula name so that readers may follow the entries and read the formulas with clarity at a glance. According to the record of the 1915 (fourth year of the Republic) typeset edition by the Shenzhou Medical Book Society, the underlying text records 112 formulas from the Treatise on Cold Damage; other sources state that it also collects more than a hundred original and modified formulas according to the six channels and the chapters on cholera and yin-yang exchange, with formula mnemonics appended for memorization. Bao Yuhua esteemed the Shennong Bencao Jing, the Huangdi Neijing, the Nanjing, and the Complete Works of Zhang Zhongjing throughout his life, and in clinical practice "used classical formulas with modifications"; contemporaries called him a "great master of cold damage in recent times." This book engages in no empty discussion but focuses solely on the standardized presentation of formulas and medicinals; it is the part of his study of "the methods of Zhang Zhongjing's complete works" closest to clinical operation, and forms a companion volume to Methods for Miscellaneous Diseases. Early editions of the original are rarely extant; what is more easily available today is the collated edition included in The Collected Medical Works of Bao Shisheng (Tianjin Science and Technology Press, 2010), as well as scanned reprints circulating privately.