Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Zhu Danxi
Yuan physician from Yiwu who turned from Neo-Confucian study to medicine, held that yang is usually in excess and yin deficient, and criticised the official formulary
In a dispensary, a tall wooden cabinet of many small drawers stands behind a stone mortar and pestle, with herbs hanging from the beams; a copper scale, a clay pot on a small lit stove and baskets of leaves sit in front, and one person with a basket walks in the herb garden.
Also known as Ming Zhenheng · Zi Yanxiu · Xue Zhe Zun Cheng Dan Xi Weng
Zhu Danxi, personal name Zhenheng, courtesy name Yanxiu, came from Yiwu in Wuzhou and lived by the Danxi stream, from which students called him Old Man Danxi. He first prepared for the examinations and studied the Neo-Confucian teachings of Zhu Xi's line under Xu Qian of Jinhua. Dai Liang's Biography of Old Man Danxi says his mother's illness turned him to medical books and Xu's encouragement later led him to give up the examinations for medicine; after a long search for a teacher he became the pupil of Luo Zhiti in Hangzhou, who passed on the schools of Liu Wansu, Zhang Congzheng and Li Gao. Holding that yang is usually in excess and yin deficient, he stressed nourishing yin and lowering fire. His Further Discourses on the Investigation of Things (Gezhi yulun) takes its title from Neo-Confucian vocabulary, and his Elaboration on the Official Formulary attacks the overuse of warming drugs in the Song government's standard collection. He died in 1358 aged seventy-eight, and Song Lian wrote his grave inscription.
Life and times
Dates 1281 CE–1358 CE