"Corrections of Errors Ancient and Modern" is a work of medical case records and physician's notes compiled by Xu Fulin and others, published in February 1985 by Hunan Science and Technology Press. The book collects 194 medical cases of erroneous and failed treatment across various specialties by famous physicians of successive dynasties. Its focus is not "how to cure a disease" but "how to clean up after a mistake": it presents both how erroneous and failed treatments occurred and how physicians identified the pathogenesis and corrected the deviation, turning the condition from danger to safety. The book is organized by category according to the cause of error, such as erroneous use of the sweating method, erroneous use of purgation, and erroneous use of warming, cold-cooling, diuresis and dispersion, tonification, drying and astringency, as well as errors by patients themselves. Each case first lists the case name and the attending physician, then recounts the illness and the diagnostic and treatment process, followed by the original book's commentary and the editors' commentary; the former preserves earlier insights, while the latter points out where the error lay and where the rescue lay, allowing readers to see the turning points in diagnostic reasoning through comparison. The book ends with an appendix, "Song of a Hundred Errors in Medicine," which summarizes in verse form the errors easily committed in clinical practice and can serve as an outline of the whole book. The value of such "negative medical cases" lies in this: successful cases are easily taken as fixed rules, but erroneous cases expose the danger of mechanically applying set formulas without distinguishing deficiency and excess, cold and heat, or constitution. The book repeatedly shows that errors mostly arise from incomplete four-diagnosis examination and unclear distinction of yin-yang, deficiency and excess, while rescue depends on carefully adhering to the pathogenesis and adapting to the pattern. For today's readers of medical cases, it is both a compilation of error-correction experience across the ages and a reminder—in clinical practice one must carefully examine deficiency and excess, cold and heat, be familiar with the properties of medicinals, and never recklessly apply purgation, tonification, warming, or cooling based on biased fixed methods.
中医医案书多如牛毛，但大多教人“这样治好了”；这本书反过来教人“治错了怎么办”。徐复霖把历代名家笔下的误治、失治病案汇为一编，一百九十四则，按误汗、误下、误温、误清、误补、误涩与病家自误等类别排列，等于给临床者画了一张“常见踩坑地图”。 最见功力的是编排体例：一案之中，既有原始病情的曲折，又有前人按语，还有编者按语层层剥开——错在辨证不细，还是错在药性不明，抑或错在拘泥成方？读者跟着走一遍，比读十条成功经验更记得住。书末《医中百误歌》更是提纲挈领，朗朗上口，适合反复诵读。 此书1985年由湖南科学技术出版社初版，属老一辈学者整理的实用型医案读物，语言平实、不炫理论，对今天的中医临床与文献学习仍有参考价值。需要说明的是，本书所收为历代医案，读时须留意时代与剂量背景，不可直接照搬方药。
Hunan Science & Technology Press has long focused on science popularization and medical publishing, balancing academic depth with accessibility for general readers. Among the 462 titles in the database are Richard Feynman's classic lectures on QED, the nature of physical laws, and relativity in the "Approaching Feynman" series, as well as general-audience works such as George Gamow's One, Two, Three... Infinity and Sean Carroll's The Big Picture. Its paleontology and dinosaur list includes Gregory S. Paul's Princeton field guides and authors such as Xing Lida. Hermann Weyl's Symmetry further reflects the press's attention to classic works bridging science and the humanities. Overall, the publisher shows a clear author profile and an emphasis on illustrated, well-rounded science publishing across both translated and original titles.
