Authority or Alternative? Rethinking Gender and the Use of Medical Knowledge in Song China, 960-1279. — Page 2:
6According to the chapter on semen disorders, a brief description outlines six prescriptions and their corresponding symptoms. All the symptoms listed are those that can easily be recognized by patients such as lack of strength in limbs, itch on the groin, and so on, rather than those often used by doctors for diagnosis such as the pulse or the coating on the tongue. They were therefore, aside from being doctors' reference, compiled also for patients' information, so that they could fetch certain prescriptions for themselves from a dispensary for example, rather than always going to a doctor.
7 In addition, the opening paragraph of this chapter on men's ailments states that "to strengthen yin brings one children (qiang yin ling ren you zi)," suggesting that men's fertility is one of the main concerns for this chapter (Taiping 30.836). Fertility is not emphasized only in chapters on women's treatments but also men's, although it does not occupy as much space in men's as in women's.
8 The pragmatic and all-inclusive approach is perpetuated in Southern Song (1127-1279) medical books. A good example is the chapter on "Asking for Progeny (qiu zi)" in the All-Inclusive Good Prescriptions for Women (Furen daquan liangfang, compiled in 1237), where the author lists prescriptions for infertility from both earlier and contemporary books, some dating back as far as the Six Dynasties (220-589). Some of them suggest that men should find women who already had several boys, while others recommend looking over the husband's and wife's dates of birth and their health conditions. Still others advise men to perform good deeds and accumulate merit. All sources are cited in this case, yet the author does not offer any comment or judgment on the divergent information (juan 9). It seems to imply that readers of this book are expected to choose for themselves among those different options.
9 Among all the prescriptions listed in this chapter, one is particularly worth noting. This prescription comes from another Song dynasty source, "Prescriptions for Asking for Progeny and Preserving Life (qiusi baosheng pian fanglun)," and the instruction clearly says that it treats both men's and women's
This prescription treats men's cold and diluted semen, impotence, nocturnal emission, as well as women's leucorrhea, emaciation, and Cold and Hot influences. It also treats those men and women who are depleted because of various damages, night sweats, lethargy, paleness, and a lack of appetite. (9.14b, 16b-17a)
In this case, treatment for women is not separated from men's. There are of course other cases with slight variations in ingredients, and cases where separate prescriptions for women are complemented with different causes of disease in women's and in men's bodies. But the whole spectrum ranging from identical prescriptions to entirely different treatments for men and women coexists in Song medical books.
10 A story was given before the prescription mentioned above telling us where it came from: A man setting off in search of solutions for his lack of sons. He was instructed by an old monk to accumulate good deeds for three years and then finally given this recipe that successfully solved his problem (14b-16a). In this case, "asking for progeny" was certainly not solely women's responsibility. Furthermore, even though there might already be quite a few remedies at hand (since prescriptions on infertility were increasing and the state had been promoting medical books), the man still went out to search for more options, found and tried still another recipe. And this prescription that the man acquired during his travel was in turn incorporated into the state-sponsored medical book. This leads to my main concern in the second part of this paper: medical books as open resources and patients as active participants in their own treatment.