Front matter

This volume follows the Sòng-era (宋本) clause numbering, which is the numbering used in every major modern commentary and in the textbook translations of Wiseman, Mitchell & Yè, and Hsü. Clause numbers are stable across editions; where a line exists only in some recensions, the footnote for that clause says so.

The Chinese text is given for reference, followed by a pinyin reading with tone marks, then a plain-English rendering. The English is deliberately close to the clause — it is a working translation for clinicians, not a literary one. Where a phrase is genuinely ambiguous in the original (fú mài 浮脈 readings, huò 或 "sometimes" symptoms, and so on), the commentary says so rather than silently picking a side.

The commentary under each clause is the modern layer: how the presentation actually shows up in an Australian clinic, what it gets mistaken for, and where the boundary sits between a classical pattern and a presentation that needs biomedical workup first. Commentary is written to complement — never replace — differential diagnosis, and red-flag presentations are named as such.

Classical sources are cited by name in the reasoning, per the Medi-Chi editorial standard: the Sù Wèn 素問, Líng Shū 靈樞, Nán Jīng 難經, Jīn Guì Yào Lüè 金匱要略 and later commentaries (Chéng Wú-Jǐ 成無己, Yóu Yì 尤怡, the Qiān Jīn 千金 and Wài Tái 外台 compilations) are referenced wherever a reading depends on them.

The formulas in this volume are transcribed as Zhāng Zhòng-Jǐng wrote them. Several ingredients in the original text are scheduled, restricted or unavailable in Australia, and this volume does not pretend otherwise.

Má huáng (麻黃, Ephedra sinica) is the obvious case. Ephedra and its alkaloids sit in Schedule 4 of the Poisons Standard and are not available to Chinese medicine practitioners under the TGA regulatory framework, and AHPRA-registered practitioners do not prescribe it. Where a clause's formula is built on má huáng, the commentary discusses the clause's logic — the pattern, the combination architecture, the sweat-and-resolve principle — and names the lawful substitution approaches taught in Australian programmes (for example, gui zhi-based exterior resolution with jing jie 荊芥 and fang feng 防風 in milder presentations). Substitutes do not reproduce the original formula; they address the same pattern within Australian law, and the difference matters clinically.

The same applies to fù zǐ (附子, prepared Aconitum), xì xīn (細辛, Asarum — aristolochic acid concerns) and any other restricted substance: the classical text is preserved for study, the commentary flags the restriction, and no clause in this volume should be read as a recommendation to source or prescribe a scheduled herb.

Doses are transcribed in the original units (liǎng 兩, and so on) with approximate modern gram equivalents for orientation only. They describe what the classical text says, not a prescribing instruction. Prescribing decisions belong to a registered practitioner working within their scope, their indemnity, and current scheduling law.

Nothing in this volume is medical advice for the general reader. If you are a patient rather than a practitioner, take the patterns here to a registered Chinese medicine practitioner (AHPRA / CMRBH registered) rather than self-prescribing.

Each formula block in this volume is cited back to its clause, not just named. When you reference a formula from this commentary — in case notes, teaching material or your own writing — the house citation form is:

• Formula name in pinyin and characters, e.g. Guì Zhī Tāng 桂枝湯.
• Source attribution: Shāng Hán Lùn 傷寒論, clause number, Tài Yáng division (Sòng edition numbering).
• This edition: Doran, D. The Modern Shāng Hán Lùn — Volume I: Tài Yáng. Medi-Chi, Ocean Shores NSW, 2026. medichi.online/shang-han-lun.
• Where the formula also appears in the Jīn Guì Yào Lüè or a later source, cite the Shāng Hán Lùn clause as primary and the parallel passage as secondary.
• Do not cite the commentary as a classical source. The commentary layer is modern editorial content; classical claims should always be traced to the named classical text.
• Ingredients flagged as scheduled or restricted in Australia must be marked as such in any reproduction of a formula block — the scheduling status travels with the citation.