Shanghan Lun


The Shanghan Lun is a part of Shanghan Zabing Lun. It is considered one of the four canonical works of Traditional Chinese medicine, along with Huang Di Nei Jing, Jin Gui Yao Lue, and Wen Bing Xue.

Surviving editions

  1. Song dynasty edition. Collated by scholastic ministers Gao Baohen, Lin Yi, and Sun Qi under the order of the emperor and published in 1065 AD. Reprinted in the Ming dynasty.
  2. Cheng Wuji's Annotated Treatise on Cold Damage. Extensively read in Japan and China, was widely circulated in Cheng's time. However, many transcriptions and re-transcriptions have stirred up disagreement as to whether it is true to the original.
  3. Classic of the Golden Chamber and Jade Sheath. This book has the same content as the Song edition with other minor variations in context.
  4. Kang Ping edition. Kang Ping is the name of the period from 1058 to 1068 AD in the Kōhei era in Japan. It is indispensable for study because it retained the ancient style of typesetting dated back to the era at the end of the Han dynasty.
The Song edition is organized into ten volumes including the first two chapters on pulse diagnosis; Cheng's edition is also organized into ten volumes but simplified; Classic of the Golden Chamber and Jade Sheath is organized into eight volumes.

Contents

The Shanghan Lun has 398 sections with 113 herbal prescriptions, organised into the Six Divisions corresponding to the six stages or pathogenesis of disease, according to the international external relationships of Yin and Yang:
  • Tai Yang : a milder stage with external symptoms of chills, fevers, stiffness, and headache. Therapy/Treatment principle: sweating.
  • Yang ming : a more severe internal excess yang condition with fever without chills, distended abdomen, and constipation. Therapy/Treatment Principle: cooling and eliminating.
  • Shao yang : half exterior, half interior half excess and half deficiency with chest discomfort, alternating chills, and fever. Therapy/ Treatment Principle: harmonizing.
  • Tai yin : chills, distended abdomen with occasional pain. Therapy/Treatment Principle: warming with supplementing.
  • Shao yin : weak pulse, anxiety, drowsiness, diarrhoea, chills, cold extremities. Therapy/Treatment Principle: warming with supplementing.
  • Jue yin : thirst, difficult urination, physical collapse. Therapy/Treatment Principle: warming with supplementing.