Abstract
Euibangyoochui (醫方類聚), the largest medical book in Korea, has medical and historical significance in that it had classified almost all East Asian medical accomplishments before Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Focusing on these values, this research investigates Yi'an (醫案), an East Asian tradition of describing clinical encounters and the therapies employed, in Euibangyoochui. By this investigation, this study expected to not only establish how the genre of Yi'an is employed for what purpose in Euibangyoochui, but also to shed a light on the appearance of Yi'an before Joseon Dynasty. At first, this study extracted Yi'an from Euibangyoochui (醫方類聚), as Yi'an does not have a standardized format. In total, the number of extracted Yi'ans is 1,025 with handwork results. Extracted Yi'ans are analyzed statically, in order to find dispersion of Yi'ans for each chapter and its references. Overall, there are 73 chapters of Euibangyoochui, which has a total of 93 chapters, containing Yi'an, while the chapter on gynecology contains the highest number of Yi'ans, 86. Judged from these result, the genre of Yi'an was used diversely and frequently, indicating various messages in Euibangyoochui. To categorize the usage and purpose of writing of Yi'ans in Euibangyoochui, this study considers some examples of Yi'ans and concludes that 3 types of Yi'ans are employed in Euibangyoochui in order to deliver the adequate medical message. One is result-centered Yi'an delivering a broader medical lesson, such as a taboo in treatment or a doctrine in medicine. The second is the concise-styled Yi'an presenting a short effective medical method. The third is multiple-information Yi'an that describes complex information of patients and medical theories, transmitting diverse lessons. Yi'ans in Euibangyoochui refer to 58 medical books. Books written by JangJaHwa (張子和; 1156-1228) are the most cited books, offering almost a quarter of total amount of Yi'ans in Euibangyoochui. This study is meaningful in that it provides basic information, such as numbers, applications, purpose of writing and references of Yi'an in Euibangyoochui. Moreover considering the historic values of Euibangyoochui, this information reflects, on the other hands, overall figures of Yi'an written before publication of Euibangyoochui.
