Ciji Medical Talks

Ciji Medical Talks is a medical case and medical talk text by the modern physician Sun Ziyun. Completed in 1924 and published by the Beijing Shishan Society, it survives in two typeset editions, from 1924 and 1927 (other sources record completion in 1923 and a facsimile based on the 1923 typeset edition). The book has two volumes, and the commonly available facsimile edition runs to about 136 pages. A preface by the author explains that the book consists of Sun Ziyun's "usual informal talks on medicine, secretly heard and written down by his students"—that is, it was recorded and organized by disciples while they observed his consultations and listened to his lectures. Volume One is arranged by the four seasons of the guihai year (1923)—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—and repeatedly sets out the academic thesis that "the entire crystallization of the Inner Canon lies in grain qi" and that "earth corresponds to the spleen and stomach; all diseases arise from earth; when earth does not generate metal, metal cannot restrain wood; therefore in treating disease one must first take clearing the stomach, nourishing yin, and harmonizing the liver as the guiding principles." It stresses that the first priority in studying medicine is to read the Shennong Materia Medica and the Inner Canon closely, and only then to range widely through other books, learning from one another's strengths, without being bound by antiquity; and it discusses one by one the causes, mechanisms, and simple therapies of more than thirty miscellaneous internal diseases, interspersed with clinical experience in treating liver disease, cough, jaundice, sha eruptions, wool-fiber boils, winter warmth, and the prevention of spring pestilence, with appended "On Locating Acupoints" and "On the Blood and Qi of the Five Viscera and Their Nourishment." The upper part of Volume Two consists of lecture notes, using diagrams of the Supreme Ultimate, the Two Modes, the Four Images, and the Eight Trigrams to deduce the relations between the prior-heaven and posterior-heaven trigrams and the viscera, the twelve months, the five movements and six qi, and the five phases, five positions, and five qi. The lower part of Volume Two argues that the Materia Medica and the Inner Canon cannot be divided into separate schools, that studying medicine should correct the abuses of the times, value new knowledge, and proceed step by step; it also contains discussions of methods of formulating prescriptions, of examining symptoms by observing the seasons and causes of disease, and of the essentials of clinical practice, covering yin and yang, the five phases, wind, the five tones and five flavors, the nine orifices and the viscera, the exterior-interior pairing of the viscera, the membranes, dual contraction by cold, the kidney as prior heaven and the stomach as posterior heaven, sovereign fire and ministerial fire, the constructive and defensive qi, pulse diagnosis, and cold-heat deficiency-excess, with questions and answers distinguishing diseases and patterns, and also discussing gynecology, pediatrics, and comparisons between Chinese and Western drugs. The whole book embodies the author's clinical attitude of taking the classics as the foundation, not being bound by established formulas, and adapting to the times.