Medical Cases from Saoye Manor

This book is a collection of medical case records by Xue Xue (courtesy name Shengbo, sobriquet Yipiao), a Qing dynasty physician specializing in warm diseases. The base text is drawn from the Zhenben Yishu Jicheng (Collectanea of Rare Medical Books), initially collated by Zhou Xiaonong and re-collated by Xie Songmu and Gui Liangpu, and is published jointly with the case records of Ye shi Shanren. The work comprises four volumes and contains over five hundred of Xue's clinical cases, chiefly in internal medicine—seasonal and miscellaneous disorders—with additional cases from external medicine, gynecology, and pediatrics. The case commentaries are concise and to the point. Volume One covers consumption, wind-stroke, yin deficiency with yang counterflow, heat and cold from yang deficiency due to overexertion, and depression. Volume Two addresses dysentery, diarrhea, and bloody stool; sweating; palpitations, mania, and epilepsy; distention, fullness, and constipation; phlegm-fluid retention, dyspnea, cough, edema, and swelling; spleen and stomach disorders; pain in the epigastrium, hypochondrium, and abdomen; and qi blockage, dysphagia, retention and obstruction, and hiccup. Volume Three covers malaria, summerheat with damp-heat, spring warmth, and miscellaneous pediatric treatments including pox and measles. Volume Four addresses seminal emission, strangury, turbid urine, and hematuria; qi depression with jaundice; atrophy and impediment; abscesses, sores, hemorrhoids, and fistulas; hernia; and miscellaneous gynecological treatments for menstruation, leukorrhea, and childbirth, with two appendices: "Effective Formulas for Regulating Menstruation and Promoting Conception" and "Immortal Sea Formulas Transmitted by Commissioner Kang." Xue had a deep mastery of damp-heat disorders and gave particular prominence to the triple burner in pattern identification, offering especially detailed analyses of etiology, pathology, and treatment methods, and he was also highly experienced in the use of sweet medicinals. His methods—nourishing stomach yin with sweet and cooling agents, treating chronic illness as entering the collaterals, using fleshy, sentient medicinals to treat depletion, and employing gentle formulas to unblock and tonify the extraordinary vessels—resemble those of Ye Tianshi, yet his prose is refined and his citations broad, giving his work a distinct character of its own. This book is a primary source for the study of Xue Xue's academic thought and clinical experience, and it also provides a reference point for understanding the medicine of the three Wu-school physicians.