Shang Han Lun · Treatise on Cold Damage

Lin Yi's Editorial Preface

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Arranged by Wang Shuhe of the Jin dynasty; collated by Lin Yi of the Song dynasty. Edition note: this English layer translates the supplied historical medical text, including its traditional theories, prognoses and treatment claims. Medicinal names and historical units are retained without conversion; the text is not modern prescribing guidance. Collated and engraved by Zhao Kaimei of the Ming dynasty, with Shen Lin as fellow collator. Preface to the Song Collation of the Shanghan Lun. The Shanghan Lun carries forward and expounds the intentions of the great sages; the works of other schools cannot compare with it. Thus Huangfu Mi of the Jin dynasty wrote in his preface to the Jiayi Zhenjing: 'Yi Yin, with the talent of a primordial sage, drew on the Shennong Bencao to formulate medicinal decoctions. Zhang Zhongjing of the Han dynasty expanded the discussion of decoctions into several dozen scrolls, and their use often proved effective. In more recent times, Wang Shuhe, Director of Imperial Medicine, arranged Zhongjing's surviving discussions with great refinement, making them all usable.' Zhongjing thus based himself on Yi Yin's methods, and Yi Yin on Shennong's classic. Can this not be called carrying forward and expounding the intentions of the great sages? There is no biography of Zhang Zhongjing in the Han Shu. The Mingyi Lu says that he was from Nanyang, that his personal name was Ji and his courtesy name Zhongjing. Recommended as Filial and Incorrupt, he rose to become Governor of Changsha. He first learned the art from Zhang Bozu of the same commandery. People of the time said that the subtlety of his discernment and application surpassed his teacher's. The treatise he wrote has language both refined and profound, and methods both concise and detailed; it lies beyond those of shallow learning and narrow experience. More than eight hundred years have passed from Zhongjing to the present, yet only Wang Shuhe was able to study his work. Such intervening figures as Ge Hong, Tao Hongjing—the supplied name includes Hong in parentheses—Hu Qia, Xu Zhicai and Sun Simiao were not without talent. Each, however, established his own school and could not revise and illuminate this work. In the Kaibao era, Military Commissioner Gao Jichong once compiled a copy and presented it to the throne, but its wording and reasoning were disordered and had never been critically corrected. Although successive dynasties kept the book in their libraries, they also failed to collate it. As a result, among practitioners throughout the realm, scarcely anyone understood it. Our state ordered learned officials to collate the medical books, and I, your servant Qi, was again chosen for this work. We considered that, among the urgent threats of the hundred diseases, none is more urgent than cold damage. We have now first collated and established Zhang Zhongjing's Shanghan Lun in ten scrolls and twenty-two chapters. Beyond its presentations, the total is 397 methods; after duplicate material is removed, 112 formulas are established. We now request that it be promulgated. Gao Baoheng, your servant, Right Advisor for Good Conduct to the Crown Prince. Sun Qi, your servant, Supernumerary Director of the Bureau of Agricultural Colonies in the Department of State Affairs. Lin Yi, your servant, Director of the Bureau of Titles in the Department of State Affairs and Collator in the Secret Archives. Respectfully submitted by the above officials.

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