官桂名實考證

A Textural Research of Guan-guei

桂之應用暨文獻記載已有悠久歷史。然桂既有諸名之衍且涉於諸桂之用，雖曰諸家本草、方書備載，然至今仍是混淆錯亂，如「官桂」名實何指？至今，尚且莫衷一是。本研究旨在借助歷代本草、方書典籍諸文獻材料，且運用歷史藥物地理學、訓詁等方法，試對「官桂」等詞彙加以辨析，希冀得窺官桂之原貌，俾使名實相符。本文研究結果顯示，官桂與菌（箘）桂、筒桂於名實之間實係相承，異名而同物，經由藥材修治之外觀皆由「筒卷」而得名。而「官桂」或指「取其品之高者，可以充用而名之、貴之之辭」12，然經由音義訓解，當以「管」之通假為是，故官桂實非意指其於諸桂材料當中「品之高」者。官桂之品，皆以是否能有筒卷為據，無論大、小枝皮俱是。則官桂當是無骨，正圓如竹之筒（管）狀而薄卷、筒卷者，其由小枝皮之薄卷至重卷之二、三重卷者，甚至大枝皮厚嫩之三重者良為是。故核定官桂於典籍文獻上之名實，當可正確官桂藥材之使用。

It has been a long time that the guei has been documented; however, the name and the administration of guei still differed from bencao to bencao. These writings of Chinese medical doctors or official archives couldn’t even give a precisely answer to define “guan-guei.” The purpose of this research is to clearly identify the meaning of guan-guei, by searching through many editions of bencao in the history and the writings of Chinese medical doctors, and examined with the historical and geographical interpretation of herbs. From the research result it shows that guan-guei, jiun-guei and tung-guei are the same. The shape of the medicinal is rolling type. Guan-guei may be considered as one of the best kind of guei in all its families. However, based on the phonosemantics, guan stands for tube-like shape. The grades of guan-guei are specified by their rolling shapes, no matter their big or tiny branches. Guan-guei is assumed boneless, rounded like bamboo tube but with rolling shape, of which the better form is recognized from one or two rolling layers on tiny branches to even three folds of thick and tender layers on big branches. Therefore, to understand the documentation and the quotation of guan-guei will be advantageous to modern clinical, research and pharmacological developments, and even to the modernization of Chinese medicine.