Annotated Treatise on Cold Damage

Shanghan Lun Zhu (Annotated Treatise on Cold Damage), in four juan, was compiled and annotated by the Qing physician Ke Qin (courtesy name Yunbo, sobriquet Sifeng, a native of Cixi, Zhejiang, 1662–1735) and completed in the eighth year of the Kangxi reign (1669). Ke Qin objected to the way earlier commentators mostly followed Wang Shuhe's old arrangement of the text, and he also criticized the exegetical method of Cheng Wuji and others, who "used the classics to explain the treatise." He therefore broke up the original order and reorganized the text around the principle of "naming chapters by pattern and grouping formulas by pattern": first a "General Discussion of Cold Damage" gathers and closely annotates the passages that treat cold damage in general, so that the reader grasps the overall picture of pulse and pattern at the outset; thereafter the text proceeds through Taiyang, Yangming, Shaoyang, Taiyin, Shaoyin, and Jueyin, each opening with an outline and then presenting chapters on the Guizhi Tang pattern, Mahuang Tang pattern, Gegen Tang pattern, Da Qinglong Tang pattern, Wuling San pattern, Shizao Tang pattern, Xianxiong Tang pattern, Xiexin Tang pattern, Didang Tang pattern, Zhizi Chi Tang pattern, Baihu Tang pattern, Chengqi Tang pattern, Chaihu Tang pattern, and others, grouping related passages by category and appending the modifications and annotations for each formula pattern. Throughout, the book advances the thesis that "Zhang Zhongjing's six channels legislate for all diseases, not for cold damage alone," focusing on discerning pathogenesis and the correspondence of formula to pattern from the original text; it is clearly organized and full of distinctive personal views. Together with the two-juan Shanghan Lun Yi and the two-juan Shanghan Fuyi, it forms the Shanghan Laisu Ji, an important work of the cold-damage school whose method of "grouping patterns by formula" exerted a profound influence on later generations.