Research on Sha zheng quan shu (A complete book for Sha disease) and its main circulating editions

Abstract

Sha zheng quan shu (A Complete Book for Sha Disease), the famous books on sha diseases in the early Qing dynasty, did exert influence on the classification and names of the sha disease ever since. During its circulation, deletions and supplementations with frequent changes in its form and contents made its versions so diversified and lead to difficulties in both its cataloguing, inheriting and searching for its origin and development. By comparing more than dozens of its editions, four main groups of version can be recognized, among which Zhang Zhong--xin's edition was the earliest one, published four years after Wang Kai's original version completed, which could reflect the authentic appearance of Wang's original version. Shen Jin-ao re--compiled and modified Zhang's version which has several separate editions with substantial changes in its contents, book title and author's names, while He Fen revised and reprinted Zhang's version, and his version was often misunderstood as the primitive one of Wang's version due to its extensive circulation. Hu Jie made a little abridgement based on He's version with another book Sha yi lun (Treatise on Pestilent Sha Disease) included and attached.