ObjectiveI’d like to introduce a Korean medical scientist, Lee Gyoojoon (李圭晙, 1855-1923)’s achievements about Huangdi’s Internal Classic (黃帝內經, HIC) to examine the Section of Viscera and Bowels to inspect the Medical Classics (稽經藏府篇, SVBIM) of the Double grinded Medical Mirror (醫鑑重磨, DMM), which is a medical book published in 1922, his last studies. And I’d like to describe its meaning of medical history.
MethodsFor this, I compared the DMM with two primary texts, the representative medical books of Joseon dynasty, Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine (東醫寶鑑, TMEM) and Lee’s former research result of HIC, Major Essentials of Huangdi’s Internal Classic Plain Question (黃帝內經素問大要, MEHIC), in the aspects of the original text, annotation, editing, attached theses, and so on.
ResultsLee Gyoojoon criticized the TMEM in two aspects. First, it was unfocused and miscellaneous, second, it intended to help Yin Qi (陰氣) and reduce Yang Qi (陽氣) so that it regards a prime mover, Yang Qi, as an enemy. In order to solve these problems he deleted miscellaneous articles and sort out the points to accord with the HIC. As a result, he had written the Section of SVBIM of the DMM in the form of revising the subtitles or refuting the contents of TMEM and quoted the partial texts of MEHIC to be written by the view of Supporting Yang Qi (扶陽).
ConclusionLee Gyoojoon proposed the Supporting Yang Qi medicine to preserve the Heart fire(心火)based on his lifelong Neo-Confucianism (性理學) study. The Section of SVBIM of the DMM showed how to apply his medical theory, which is achieved by the study of the medical classic HIC to real clinical medicine through a medium of the TMEM. In addition, it could explain concretely how the Confucianists studied the medicine and how Confucianism can impact to the development of medical theory.