Of these five leaders of warming tonification, our attention turns to the one who had the broadest impact on the later evolution of Chinese medicine. Sun Yikui and then also Li Zhongzi (who, like Zhang Jingyue, wrote a commentary about the Neijing), began to move away from strict adherence to the importance of warming tonification, considering it one of several potentially useful approaches, but Li especially helped bring forward the concepts of this school into the evolving medical concepts of the Qing Dynasty period. Both Sun Yikui (author of Yi An Medical Records), and Zhang Jingyue also followed this mingmen focal point, with their own slight modifications in fact, this emphasis gave the warming tonification school the additional title of the mingmen school. His efforts focused upon the idea of balancing the yin (water) and yang (fire) of the kidney and of the mingmen, using formulas such as Zhi Bai Dihuang Wan. Zhao Xianke (author of Yiguan Key Link of Medicine ) further developed the teachings of Xue Ji with emphasis on the role of the gate of life (Chinese: mingmen). Xue Ji (author of Neike Zhaiyao A Synopsis of Internal Medicine)emphasized tonification of the spleen and stomach, using herbs such as atractylodes ( baizhu), ginseng ( renshen), astragalus ( huangqi), and licorice ( gancao). This conceptual framework of tonification followed from the views of Li Gao, who was a key contributor to the Jin-Yuan reforms. In this endeavor, he participated with the contemporary physician-scholars Xue Ji (1488-1558), Sun Yikui (1522-1619), Zhao Xianke (c.1567-c.1644) and Li Zhongzi (1588-1655). Zhang belonged to the school of “warm tonification” (Chinese: wenbu) that came to the forefront in the mid-16 th century. He analyzed the strong points of the schools of medicine that evolved during the Jin-Yuan period and persisted into the Ming Dynasty. It summed up not only the therapeutic concepts and formulations of the author, but also of his predecessors. The first two sections of the Leijing, devoted to “nourishing life” and “yin/yang,” are relevant to the discussion to be presented here, but it is the information from the Quanshu, Zhang’s final preserved publication, that will be the focus of this paper. The Leijing basically combines the contents of the Neijing Suwen with that of the Lingshu, rearranging them according to topical categories and adding lengthy explanations of difficult or controversial passages. The two major works coming from Zhang’s years of learning and medical practice are the Leijing (a study of the Neijing) and Jingyue Yixue Quanshu(Collected Works usually called simply Jingyue Quanshu) both of them are massive compilations (32 volumes and 64 volumes respectively). Zhang Jingyue (c.1563-1640 original name: Zhang Jiebin) had an immense influence on the development of Chinese medicine at a time when the Ming Dynasty was collapsing to give way to the Qing Dynasty, the transition of power occurring in 1644. Classical Physician Zhang Jingyue: The Rehmannia Docīy Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
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