What is the preface to Zhang Zhongjing’s Treatise on Typhoid Miscellaneous Diseases?

  Whenever I read the diagnosis of the Yue people entering Guo and the look of the Qi marquis, I always sighed with admiration at their talent and beauty.  Translation】 Whenever I read the book “The Records of the Grand Historian”, I would not fail to admire his talent. I have never read the account of the Qin Yueren’s visit to the State of Guo to consult the Prince of Guo and to look at the color of the Marquis of Qi, and not once did I not sigh with excitement at his outstanding talent. The first time I saw him, I was very impressed with his talent. I wonder if the people who live in the world today don’t pay attention to medicine, and study the art of prescription, so that they can cure the illnesses of their relatives, save the poor and the poor, and keep their bodies intact to support their lives, but they compete for glory and power, and they follow the powerful and powerful, and they are diligent to draw, but fame and profit are their business, and they decorate the end of it, but neglect the essence of it, and they are outside, but emaciated inside.  It is strange that those scholars who live in society today do not pay attention to medicine, do not carefully study the art of medicine in order to treat the diseases of the king and his parents, to save the poor from illnesses and hardships, and to keep their own bodies healthy for a long time in order to maintain their lives. The pursuit of fame and fortune; attaching importance to those secondary extraneous things, and despising the fundamental way of abandoning health. The body is made to pine for its own appearance.  If the skin does not exist, how can the hair be attached to it?  If the skin no longer exists, where will the hair attach?  When he was suddenly struck by an evil wind, he was struck by an extraordinary disease, and when he was struck by a calamity, he surrendered his will and submitted himself to the witch’s wishes, and he surrendered himself to heaven, and he was defeated, and he was entrusted with the life span of a hundred years and the most valuable weapon, and he was entrusted to a doctor, and he did what he wanted.  When he was suddenly attacked by a foreign cause of disease, or when he was haunted by an unusual disease, or when he was in danger, he was shocked and trembled, so he lowered his status, bowed down, and respectfully looked forward to the prayers of the female and male wizards, who announced that they had run out of solutions, so he had to return to heaven and wait for death with his hands tied. The most precious body, which can live for a very long time, is given to a mediocre and incompetent doctor and is left at his disposal.  The most important thing is that they are dead. Their bodies have died, their spirits have disappeared, and they have become ghostly creatures, buried deep under the nine springs, and others weep for his death in vain.  The painful man! The world is in a coma, and no one can realize that they do not value their lives, and if they are lightly alive, what is their glory and power?  Translation】 It hurts! The whole world’s scholars are so dazed and confused that no one can wake up and understand, and do not cherish their own lives. What glory and power can they talk about if they despise life like this?  They are not able to love others, and they cannot love themselves, and in case of disaster, they live in a bad place, and they are as ignorant and stupid as wandering souls.  Moreover, even if they are officials, they cannot love others and take care of their sufferings; and if they are not officials, they cannot love themselves and take care of their own hidden problems.  Woe to them! The people who tend to the world, who compete with the pomp and circumstance, do not strengthen the fundamentals, forget their bodies and favor things, are as dangerous as the valley of ice.  Translation】 Sorrow! Those scholars who run around in the society, chasing after the superficial glory, not taking care of their bodies as the foundation, forgetting their bodies to die for power and fame, are as dangerous as walking on thin ice, as if they are in a deep valley, to such an extent!  I have many clansmen, to the remaining 200, since the Jian’an era, not yet ten years, its death, two out of three, typhoid fever in ten of the seven.  The population of my clan was very large, more than two hundred people. Since the first year of Jian’an, less than ten years ago, two-thirds of them died, and typhoid fever accounted for seven out of ten of them.  Feeling the loss of the past and the inability to save the victims, I diligently sought the ancient teachings and collected various prescriptions, and compiled “Su Wen”, “Nine Scrolls”, “Eighty-one Difficulties”, “Yin Yang Da”, “Fetus F Medicine Record”, and pacified the pulse to identify the evidence, and compiled the “Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases” in 16 volumes.  I was saddened by the decline of my clan and the loss of population in the past, and by the fact that those who died prematurely and in vain could not be saved. I diligently studied the legacy of my predecessors, collected many medical prescriptions, and used the Su Wen, the Nine Scrolls, the Eighty-one Difficulties, the Great Treatise on Yin and Yang, and the Book of Fetus Medicine.  Even if I cannot cure all the diseases, I can see the source of the diseases and know the source, and if I can find the collection of Yu, I can think of more than half.  Translation】 Even if I cannot cure all diseases, I may be able to know the root cause of the disease when I see the symptoms according to the principles in the book. If I can apply the contents of this book I have written, then most of the problems of typhoid can be solved.  The five elements in the sky are used to transport all kinds of people, and the five permanent bodies are endowed with the five Tibetan bodies.  The five elements are distributed in the natural world, and the five elements are transformed into all things. The human body is endowed with the normal qi of the five elements, which is why it has the physiological functions of the five organs. It is difficult to exhaust the changes in them. If one is not a person of great talent and insight, how can one find out the truth and interest of them?  In the ancient times, there were Shen Nong, Huang Di, Qi Bo, Bo Gao, Lei Gong, Shao Yu, Shao Shi, Zhong Wen, in the middle ages, there were Changsang, Bian Magpie, and in the Han Dynasty, there were Gong Cheng Yang Qing and Cang Gong, but in the past, no one has heard of them.  In the ancient times, there were Shennong, Huangdi, Qibo, Bo Gao, Lei Gong, Shao Yu, Shao Shi, Zhong Wen, etc. In the Middle Ages, there were Changsang Jun and Qin Yue Ren, and in the Han Dynasty, there were Gong Cheng Yang Qing and Cang Gong, but since then, no one has been heard of who is comparable to them.  Look at today’s doctors, do not think about seeking the purpose of the scriptures, in order to perform what they know, each inherit the family skills, the end of the old, save the disease and ask for the disease, the matter in the mouth to give.  They do not want to think about the meaning of the medical classics in order to expand and deepen their knowledge of medicine; they just inherit their own family skills and follow the old methods; when they look at diseases and ask about them, they are always devoted to fancy words and just want to deal with patients.  In the case of the patient, the patient’s body is not as good as the patient’s feet, and the patient’s hands are not as good as the patient’s feet.  The patient’s pulse was not diagnosed after a short time, but he was prescribed medicine; he only pressed the inch pulse, but not the ulnar pulse; he only pressed the hand pulse, but not the foot pulse; he did not refer to the three pulses of Renying, Tarsus Yang, and Cun Kou; he checked the number of pulse beats of the patient according to his own breath, and finished after less than fifty beats; the patient was dying, but he could not confirm the diagnosis, and he did not have any vague impression of the pulse patterns of the nine pulse areas. The nose, between the two eyebrows and the forehead are not examined at all. This is really as people say “to see the sky with the tube” like very incomplete.  It is really difficult to distinguish life from death.  It is very difficult to identify the incurable evidence or to distinguish the curable evidence.  Confucius cloud: born to know the top, learning is the second, more knowledge and knowledge, know the second. I am still in the field of prescription medicine, so I would like to ask you to do something.  Confucius said: Those who know things from birth are the best, those who know things through study are the second best, and those who listen to and seek advice from many sources and remember things extensively are the second best. I have always been a lover of medicine, so please allow me to practice the words “learn and know” and “learn more and know more”!