Introduction
"Comprehensive Aims of Medicine"
This page is cultural documentation, not medical advice.
A Ming-dynasty comprehensive medical handbook by Ye Wenling (Zhengde-Jiajing reign era, early 16th century), completed around 1534. A clinical formula collection that preserves the canonical "liver-qi stagnation" formula Chái Hú Shū Gān Sǎn.
Ye Wenling's Yixue Tongzhi is a mid-Ming clinical formula reference that systematized several late-Ming "modified classical formulas" still in modern 中成药 use. The text is the canonical source of Chái Hú Shū Gān Sǎn (柴胡疏肝散, "Bupleurum Liver-Soothing Powder"), an 8-ingredient formula derived from Sì Nì Sǎn (Four-Counterflow Powder, the canonical liver-rectifying formula) with the addition of Chén Pí, Chuān Xiōng, Xiāng Fù, and Bái Sháo. The formula is, in modern Chinese medicine, the standard first-line treatment for "liver-qi stagnation" presentations (distension in the chest and hypochondria, emotional irritability, sighing), and is the direct predecessor of the modern 中成药 Chái Hú Shū Gān Wán.
Historical background
The Yixue Tongzhi (《医学统旨》) was compiled by Ye Wenling during the Zhengde-Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty and completed around 1534, on the basis of his decades of clinical practice. The text emerged within the late-Ming synthesis of the "classical-formula + physician-modified" (经方 + 加减) tradition, reflecting the broader movement of consolidating clinical knowledge that had matured since the Jin-Yuan medical reform. The book circulated in manuscript form during the late Ming, and printed editions were produced from the late Ming through the Qing, eventually included in major medical anthologies such as the Siku Quanshu medical category.…
Formulas recorded in this text· 1
Formula · Chái Hú Shū Gān Wán
Bupleurum Liver-Soothing
柴胡舒肝丸
A "soothe the liver, move qi, harmonize the center" formula from the Ming dynasty, the formula of choice for "liver qi stagnation" presentations with chest and flank distension.