Introduction
"Origins of Medicine"
This page is cultural documentation, not medical advice.
A 3-volume Jin-Yuan medical treatise by Zhang Yuansu (ca. 1131–post 1234), completed around 1186. The founding text of the "Yishui" (易水) lineage and the foundational reference for "organ-system pattern identification" and "drug channel-entry theory" in Chinese clinical pharmacology.
Zhang Yuansu, styled Jiegu, is conventionally cited as the founder of the Yishui (易水) lineage in Chinese medicine and as the teacher of Li Dongyuan (the more famous "tonify-earth" master). The Yixue Qiyuan is his most programmatic text, organizing disease by organ-system pattern identification (脏腑辨证), and indexing each herb by channel-entry, qi-movement (ascending / descending / floating / sinking, 升降浮沉), and "guiding-herb" (引经报使) function. The text records the formula Shēng Mài Yǐn (生脉饮, "Pulse-Generating Drink"), a 3-ingredient formula of Rén Shēn + Mài Mén Dōng + Wǔ Wèi Zǐ, today one of the most frequently prescribed 中成药 for "qi-yin dual-deficiency" patterns. The book is, in short, the theoretical bridge between the Song-classical school and the Jin-Yuan clinical pharmacology revolution.
Historical background
The Yixue Qiyuan was composed by Zhang Yuansu around 1186, two decades after Liu Wansu's clinical-pharmacological turn and well into the second generation of the Jin-Yuan reform. Zhang's project reorganized Song-dynasty medical learning by rearranging classical formulas around organ-system pattern identification (脏腑辨证) rather than around disease category or single symptom. The Yixue Qiyuan systematized the channel-entry theory of herbs (归经), the four-direction qi-movement concept (升降浮沉), and the guiding-herb doctrine (引经报使), and became the theoretical foundation of the Yishui (易水) lineage. The text was transmitted through Zhang's students — most famously Li Dongyuan and Wang Haoogu — and shaped Jin-Yuan clinical pharmacology and the spleen-stomach school.
Formulas recorded in this text· 1
Formula · Shēng Mài Yǐn
Pulse-Generating Decoction
生脉饮(党参方)
A "tonify qi, nourish yin, restore the pulse" formula from the Jin dynasty, a three-ingredient classical formula for "qi and yin deficiency with collapse of the pulse".