DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷三
馬行街北諸醫鋪
A Street of Specialists
Mahang Street does not separate medicine from commerce. Court-affiliated medical officials, named pharmacies and recognizable specialties sit inside a district that becomes almost impossible to stand still in after dark.
FOLLOW THE STREET ↓01 / MEDICAL COMMERCE
Expertise becomes visible on the street.
The sequence below is conceptual. It preserves the specialties named by Meng without turning every shop-name punctuation choice into a false directory.
MENG YUANLAO / SPECIALTIES + SHOPSCAI TAO / DRUG SHOPS + GUOYI + NIGHT MARKETLIMIT / NOT A MODERN HOSPITAL DISTRICT
The chapter is short, but it changes the scale of the book. Instead of asking where people eat or drink, Meng shows expertise itself becoming legible in the marketplace.
1. Medical status and commerce share the same street.
馬行北去，乃小貨行。時樓大骨傅藥鋪，直抵正係舊封丘門。兩行金紫醫官藥鋪，如杜金鈎家、曹家、獨勝元、山水李家，口齒咽喉藥；石魚兒、班防禦、銀孩兒、栢郎中家，醫小兒；大鞋任家，產科。其餘香藥鋪席、官員宅舍，不欲遍記。WORKING TRANSLATION
Going north from Mahang Street is the Small-Goods Market. The opening shop-name cluster is textually uncertain; the route continues straight toward what had been the old Fengqiu Gate. On both sides are pharmacies associated with Jinzi medical officials. Meng then names businesses connected with medicines for the mouth, teeth and throat; others treating children; and the Daxie Ren family in obstetrics. The remaining aromatic-drug shops, stalls and officials’ residences, he says, are too numerous to record.
GALOK READING
金紫醫官 should not be flattened to “doctors.” Near-Song institutional writing links the term to the court medical hierarchy, while Cai Tao independently describes Mahang Street drug shops as often associated with 國醫. That supports a connection between elite medical status and commercial practice without making every shop a government bureau.
2. Specialization sits inside congestion.
夜市北州橋又盛百倍，車馬闐擁，不可駐足，都人謂之「裏頭」。WORKING TRANSLATION
The night market north of Zhouqiao is more flourishing still. Carriages and horses crowd together so densely that one cannot stop. People of the capital call the area “Litou.”
GALOK READING
The specialist street does not become quieter as its services become more technical. Meng ends on crowd pressure. Medicine is one layer of a district whose night economy remains intensely commercial.
TEXT LOCK / TITLE
Lu Xinyuan’s collation against a Yuan blockprint states that a later edition omitted 諸 before 醫鋪. Galok therefore uses 馬行街北諸醫鋪 as the entry title.
Yuan-witness collation ↗