Program Description

The “Treatise on Cold Damage”, the Sho Kan Ron 傷寒論 (Ch: Shäng hán lùn) and its sister text the Kin Ki Yo Ryaku 金匱要略 (Ch: Jīn Guì Yào Lǜe) by Zhāng Zhòngjǐng張仲景 (150–219) are generally considered as the primary classical Chinese source texts to have influenced the development of Kampō Medicine from their early importation into Japan in the 12th c. right up to the present day. It remains the case after 1500 years of integration of Chinese Medicine into Japan that at least 75% of formulas commonly used in Kampō practice today derive from those texts.

Yet, not only has the original text of the Treatise been lost to posterity, with competing versions emerging over the centuries in China, but in the case of Japan (which originally adopted the Song dynasty version), the Treatise not only enjoyed a major revival, in particular during the Edo period (1603–1867), but was appropriated as the primary source of inspiration for the Classical School or ‘Ancient Formulas Current’ (kohōha 古方派) that developed in late Edo. From the school’s founder, Gotō Konzan 後藤艮山 (1659–1733), to Kagawa Shuan 香川修庵 (1683–1755) and Yamawaki Tōyō 山脇 東洋 (1705–1762) and finally (Yamawaki’s student), Yoshimasu Tōdō 吉益東洞 (1702–1773), successive generations of kohōha doctors exclusively drew inspiration from the Treatise, gradually rejecting some of the foundational doctrines of Chinese Medicine (as articulated in such classics as the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon (Huángdì Nèijīng黄帝内経) and preferring instead to return to what they saw as the essence of the medical styles of Chinese antiquity which in their estimation were based on practice, not abstract theory.

Thus emerged the doctrine of “Proof” or Shō 証 (Ch: Zhèng) in which clinical experience or evidence became the litmus test for the effectiveness of a formula (shinshi jikken 親試実験). Tōdō in particular re-examined the entire lexicon of classical formulas in the light of their concrete symptomatic manifestation and emphasized the most concrete of all the diagnostic practices of the time – Abdominal diagnosis 腹診 Fukushin – making it the mainstay of his redefined clinical narrative attached to each and every formula, thus rendering the formula itself the primary diagnostic indicator as well as the treatment method. This matching of the method (formula) directly with the patient presentation lies at the heart of Kampō practice to this day.

In this workshop we will examine not only the unique clinical narratives for many of the most common classical formulae as they were re-defined by late Edo Kampō doctors, but also consider their respective place within the landscape and architecture of the Treatise itself. We will define the six stages in practical anatomical, physiological and pathological terms and consider not only the formulas that derive from the text itself, but also multiple commonly used formulas from other periods of both Chinese and Japanese history in terms of how they find a place within this paradigm, despite being written long after the source text itself.

There will, as always, be a practical component to the workshop with hands-on palpation of the abdomen in relation to the identification of formulas from all 6 stages.

In this workshop, you will learn to relate to formulas old and new through the lens of the Six Stages and come to recognize their “stories” through the living, breathing clinical evidence that defines them.