Preliminary Report on the Tianhui Bamboo Manuscript Methods of Decoctions with Blended Formulas to Treat Sixty Ailments

Abstract

Among the medical manuscripts excavated in 2012–13 from the Han tombs at Tianhui Township in Sichuan Province is a collection of recipes for treating sixty ailments. Under each ailment heading are one or more recipes, making 106 recipes in total. Because its content focuses on “combining, blending and producing formulas,” the authors decided to name this collection the Methods of Decoctions with Blended Formulas to Treat Sixty Ailments after a title of a manuscript transmitted to Cang Gong as recorded in the “Biographies of Bian Que and Cang Gong” chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian, circa 100 BCE. The key phrase in this title, “methods of decoctions with blended formulas,” refers to methods of blending and harmonizing formulas optimally. This Tianhui manuscript preserves ancient medical recipes that had been long lost, including grain decoctions, alcoholic decoctions, and “fire formulas.” It is an invaluable source for charting the emergence of a genre of “classical formularies” in Han times that resulted in texts such as the Classical Methods of Decoctions, the title of which was noted in an ancient bibliography but until recently was thought to be entirely lost.