• The Journal of Korean Medical History
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.69-86
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• 2022

This study examined guange (關格) in Yixuerumen (醫學入門) from a new perspective and evaluated its value in terms of emergency medicine. We compared and analyzed the definition, symptoms, and treatment methods of guange in Yixuerumen with related clinical presentations in modern medicine. Guange includes nausea and vomiting, dysphagia, dysuria, and constipation without diarrhea. A representative disease related to dysuria is uremia, while one related to constipation, nausea, and vomiting is enterocleisis, and and a third related to dysphagia is chronic esophagitis and esophagus cancer. Li Chan, the author of Yixuerumen, recognized guange as an emergency of serious eating and elimination disorder as various symptoms of diseases (病症) gradually get worse from the perspective of external diseases (外感病) and miscellaneous diseases (雜病) and handled it in various ways including yin-tonifying medicinals (補陰藥), qi-tonifying medicinals (補氣藥), qi-regulating formulas (理氣劑), phlegm-dispelling formulas (去痰劑), and "water rising, fire falling" formulas (水升火降) in addition to emetic formulas (催吐劑), diuretic formulas (滲利劑), and interior-attacking formula (攻裏劑). Concepts like guange in Yixuerumen were somewhat useful when handling the applicable emergencies at the level of then medical treatment.