Elder Care — the 2 books the tradition kept on this shelf
The geriatric shelves. Written when old age was a medical category of its own: what to watch, what to ease, and where these writers explicitly stopped short of promising.
Every entry below is taken from the same catalogue the product is built on: the title, the hand behind it, when it sits in time, what the book works on, and what it changed. Sentences in bold are the ones we can point an outside source at; the rest is our summary of the book, not a claim from it.
Book of Honoring the Aged (养老奉亲书)
宋·陈直 · Song (1080) · Yang Lao Feng Qin Shu
Works on: Practical care of ageing parents in fifteen chapters: food and its regulation, signs and pulse, medicinal support, temperament, dwelling and routine, fortune and hardship, things to avoid, care through the four seasons.
What it changed: It treated old age as needing specific methods rather than filial sentiment. It also clears up a common confusion: chapters two to four of the later Shou Qin Yang Lao Xin Shu are Yuan additions by Zou Xuan, not Chen Zhi’s text. It broke the care of the old into an executable checklist — food, dwelling, mood, season — rather than a lesson in filial duty, and East Asian practice copied that structure for close to a thousand years.
New Book on Nourishing the Aged (寿亲养老新书)
宋·陈直 原 / 元·邹铉 续 · Song–Yuan · Shou Qin Yang Lao Xin Shu
Works on: Care of aged parents, four scrolls. The first is Chen Zhi's original in full: fifteen numbered essays running from dietetics and the seasons to a simple emergency prescription for the old. Scrolls two to four are the Yuan continuation by Zou Xuan — one gathering exemplary sayings and deeds of filial sons; one filling the day with a six-sound breathing set, a post-meal routine, and the gear of living comfortably, an easy chair, a travelling carriage, teas, broths and congees; one on looking after the body, keeping medicines and collecting formulas.
What it changed: It and the Nourishing Old Age book are one stream in two layers, not two works: scroll one ends by saying it copies Chen Zhi, and the Siku notice spells out that scroll one is Song and the rest Yuan additions by Zou Xuan. Those three added scrolls widen care of the old from treating illness into daily life — filial stories first, then dwelling, objects, tea, porridge and noodles. Recut many times in Japan, it became one of the wellsprings of early modern Japanese practice of nourishing life.
Where this leaves our product
Qicura reads a described symptom against this kind of material and returns a pattern in plain language with the sources named. It does not dispense: no herb quantities, no formula composition, no preparation instructions, and no needling technique - those are deliberate limits enforced on the server, not wording we soften for a page.
Educational, self-care content - not a medical diagnosis. For personal advice, consult a qualified practitioner.