Medical Notes

Medical Notes is a collection of clinical experiences by Gong Qufei (1908–1993), a renowned physician of eastern Sichuan in the modern era. Gong was a native of Huangpi, Hubei, and practiced medicine for many years in Wanxian, Sichuan (present-day Wanzhou, Chongqing). He served as chief physician of traditional Chinese medicine at the Wanxian Prefectural People's Hospital and academic advisor to the Wanxian School of Chinese Medicine, and was among the first group of five hundred senior Chinese medicine experts in China, receiving a special government allowance from the State Council. The present book is based on the internally printed edition of Medical Notes, compiled, collated, and revised by his disciples and descendants after they gathered historical materials from his former residence and interviewed his students. It is included in the Series of One Hundred Clinical Experts of Chinese Medicine over the Past Century. The book is organized into four parts: a brief biography of the physician, discussion and treatment of specific diseases, miscellaneous talks after diagnosis, and a chronological biography, with the emphasis on "discussion and treatment of specific diseases." The cases recorded cover internal, external, and gynecological conditions, including wind-warmth (lobar pneumonia), cough and asthma with chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, bronchiectasis, whooping cough, chest pain (exudative pleurisy), stomach duct pain with ulcer bleeding, abdominal distension (gastroptosis), diarrhea and dysentery, viral hepatitis, cholecystitis, acute orchitis, acute appendicitis, ascariasis-induced intestinal obstruction, coronary heart disease and hypertension, palpitations with low-grade fever, insomnia, headache, wind attacking the meridians, sequelae of acute myelitis, nephritis and renal proteinuria, and also include Gong's reflections on the modification and combination of formulas. The book retains the first-person narrative voice of the original, the editors' notes are set in italicized kaiti type as annotations, and the names, dosages, and occasional erroneous characters in prescriptions have been standardized and corrected for the convenience of today's readers.