Introduction
"Standards of the Lantai"
This page is cultural documentation, not medical advice.
An 8-volume Qing-dynasty formula collection by Xu Dachun (1693–1771), completed around 1764. A key representative of the "return to the source" school that rejected fashionable later formulas in favor of rigorously annotated classical recipes.
Xu Dachun (styled Lingtai) was the most influential late-Qing critic of medical fashion, opposing the overuse of the warming-tonification school and Ming-Qing "kitchen-sink" formulas. The Lantai Guifan is his attempt to clean up the late-imperial pharmacopoeia by indexing more than 2,000 formulas back to their original classical sources, with notes on each. The text records and re-organizes many large and "comprehensive" formulas including Dà Huó Luò Wán. It is, in short, the Qing-dynasty "return to the source" school in its most programmatic form.
Historical background
The Lantai Guifan was compiled by Xu Dachun and completed around 1764 during the mid-Qing Qianlong reign. The text emerged from the "return-to-the-source" (溯源返本) school, which rose as a critical response to the late-imperial overuse of large "kitchen-sink" formulas and the dominance of the warming-tonification (温补派) school. Xu's eight volumes are organized by disease category and index more than 2,000 formulas back to their original classical sources in the Shanghan Lun, Jingui Yaolue, and other early canons, with critical notes on each. The text re-organized and re-issued many large Qing-era formulas including Dà Huó Luò Wán, and reflects the broader Han-learning (汉学) evidential-research ethos of Qianlong-era scholarship.…
Formulas recorded in this text· 1
Formula · Dà Huó Luò Wán
Major Channel-Activating
大活络丸
A large, multi-action "qu-feng hua-tan huo-xue" (expel wind, transform phlegm, invigorate blood) formula from the Qing-dynasty "Standards of the Lantai", one of the most compound classical prescriptions in the TCM canon, with over forty ingredients.