bubble_chart Description This book is abbreviated as Shenghui Fang, consisting of 100 volumes, compiled by Wang Huai-yin and others under imperial decree during the Northern Song Dynasty. In the third year of the Taiping Xingguo era (978), Emperor Taizong of Song ordered the Imperial Medical Academy's physicians to each contribute their family's empirical prescriptions, resulting in over ten thousand prescriptions. These were combined with over a thousand empirical prescriptions that Emperor Taizong had personally collected before his ascension. Wang Huai-yin, the Imperial Medical Envoy, along with Deputy Envoy Wang You, Zheng Qi (also known as Zheng Yan), and Medical Officer Chen Zhaoyu, were tasked with "compiling and categorizing" these prescriptions. Wang Huai-yin and his team meticulously organized and classified the numerous medical prescriptions, dividing them into 1670 categories based on disease symptoms. Each category was prefaced with relevant theories from Chao Yuan-fang Zhubing Yuanhou Lun, followed by prescriptions and medications, organizing prescriptions by symptoms and linking theories to symptoms. The book begins with detailed descriptions of pulse diagnosis and methods for distinguishing yin-yang deficiencies and excesses, followed by prescriptions and fundamental principles of medication use, encompassing theory, method, prescription, and medication, comprehensively reflecting the level of medical development up to the early Northern Song period. Since each category narrates the etiology, pathology, symptoms, and the appropriateness and contraindications of formulas, as well as the dosage of medications, with prescriptions tailored to symptoms and medications applied according to prescriptions, the clinical application is quite convenient and practical. The book contains 16,834 prescriptions, covering diseases of the five zang-organs, internal, external, orthopedic injuries, metal wounds, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, vermilion pills, dietary therapy, tonics, acupuncture and moxibustion, etc. This large-scale formulary took fourteen years to compile and was completed in the third year of the Chunhua era (992).
The earliest printed edition of this book was published in May of the third year of the Chunhua era, which has long been lost. The typeset edition published by the People's Medical Publishing House in 1959 was based on collation from four manuscript copies. Due to the book's large volume, it was not easily disseminated. In the mid-Northern Song period, He Xipeng from Fujian condensed the contents of this book into
Shenghui Xuanfang, a 60-volume work containing 6,096 prescriptions, which is also now lost.