Introduction
"Standards for Diagnosis and Treatment"
This page is cultural documentation, not medical advice.
A 120-volume Ming-dynasty comprehensive medical encyclopedia by Wang Kentang (1549–1613), completed around 1602. The largest Ming clinical reference, organized into six specialties (internal, gynecology, pediatrics, external, trauma, sensory organs).
Wang Kentang, styled Yutai and self-styled Sunan, was a late-Ming scholar-physician who compiled the most comprehensive medical reference of the dynasty. The Zhengzhi Zhunsheng is structured as six specialty "standards" (六科证治准绳), totaling 120 volumes and tens of thousands of formulas. The text is the canonical source of Jiàn Pí Wán (健脾丸, "Spleen-Strengthening Pill"), a 10-ingredient formula combining spleen-tonifying (Bai Zhu, Shan Yao, Fu Ling) and food-digesting (Shen Qu, Mai Ya, Shan Zha) herbs, the canonical "tonify plus digest" formula for "spleen-deficiency with food-stagnation" presentations. It is, in short, the Ming-dynasty clinical reference that defined the "six specialty" structure still in use in modern Chinese-medicine curricula.
Historical background
The Zhengzhi Zhunsheng (Standards for Diagnosis and Treatment), also known as the Liu Ke Zhengzhi Zhunsheng (六科证治准绳, "Standards for Six Specialties"), was compiled by Wang Kentang and completed in 1602 during the late-Ming Wanli reign. Drawing on roughly two decades of clinical and textual scholarship, the text set out to systematically organize the medical literature of the dynasty into a single 120-volume reference covering six clinical specialties: internal medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, external medicine, traumatology, and sensory-organ disorders. The text is the canonical source of Jiàn Pí Wán (Spleen-Strengthening Pill), a "tonify-plus-digest" formula widely reproduced in modern Chinese-pharmacy practice.…
Formulas recorded in this text· 1
Formula · Jiàn Pí Wán
Spleen-Strengthening Pills
健脾丸
A "jian-pi xiao-shi" (strengthen the spleen and digest food) formula from Wang Kentang's "Standards for Diagnosis and Treatment", the classical TCM "weak digestion" formula.