Mingyin Ji of Surgery: A Late-Qing Classic of TCM External Medicine
Mingyin Ji of Surgery (Waike Mingyin Ji) is a work by He Jingcai, a Hui (Muslim) village physician from Dachang County, Hebei, in the late Qing dynasty. The book was published in the twenty-eighth year of the Guangxu reign (1902). He Jingcai borrowed money to publish it, so the original print run was very limited—only 200 copies.
After publishing it, He Jingcai mainly gave copies to relatives and friends. Mr. Zhao Bingnan, a great modern master of TCM external medicine, once obtained one; in 1925 Professor Zhao used a formula from Waike Mingyin Ji to treat “baiding ding” (a kind of deep-set furuncle) for Puyi, the last emperor.
In the 1960s, Dr. Gao Guilin, a chief physician at Beijing Huguosi TCM Hospital (and a disciple of Shi Jinmo, one of Beijing’s four famous physicians), who was very interested in Waike Mingyin Ji, searched everywhere for the book. He eventually found a copy in the basement collection of the Beijing Library (now the National Library).
Books in the National Library’s basement stack can only be read on site, not borrowed, so Dr. Gao Guilin had to hand-copy the book every weekend over three years to finish it, for research and teaching.
Dr. Gao Guilin’s son, Gao Zhenying, later studied Western medicine, but because of his family’s medical heritage he was also very interested in Chinese medicine. While working in Gansu, he brought part of his father’s hand-copied manuscript with him.
He not only used the treatment plans from Waike Mingyin Ji in his own practice, but also taught them to other doctors in Western-medicine-learning-Chinese-medicine classes. At home, Dr. Gao Guilin often discussed medical questions with his son Gao Zhenying, and the two of them devoted much effort to Waike Mingyin Ji.
Carrying forward the spirit of “elucidating classical meanings and integrating new knowledge,” drawing on his own clinical experience, and to fulfill his father’s wish, Dr. Gao Zhenying spent great effort writing a Textual Interpretation, Collation, Commentary, and Annotation of the Waike Mingyin Ji, published in 2013 by Xueyuan Press.
Built on the Waike Mingyin Ji and enriched with the Gao father and son’s lifetime of reading and clinical insight, it is a TCM external-medicine monograph well worth reading. Those interested in TCM external medicine may open it and read.
A standalone edition of Waike Mingyin Ji is now also available, but I still recommend interested readers read it alongside Dr. Gao Zhenying’s annotated version, for easier understanding and absorption.