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  • Zhongguo gudai de yixue yishi yu zhengzhi: Yi yishi wenben wei zhongxin de yige fenxi by Shih-ch’i Chin 金仕起
  • Yan Liu
Shih-ch’i Chin 金仕起, Zhongguo gudai de yixue yishi yu zhengzhi: Yi yishi wenben wei zhongxin de yige fenxi 中國古代的醫學, 醫史與政治, 以醫史文本為中心的一個分析 [ Medicine, Medical History, and Politics in Ancient China] Taipei: Chengchi University Press, 2010. xxv + 436 pp. NT $520.00.

The study of medicine in ancient China is as important as it is challenging. The period witnessed the inception of Chinese medical tradition and the establishment of its foundational theories and techniques, yet our understanding of the early development of Chinese medicine is constrained by limited and fragmented sources. In recent decades, the field has been developing rapidly thanks to the discovery of newly excavated manuscripts and the deployment of new historiographical tools for textual analysis. This allows historians of medicine to produce new findings in diverse domains, including the origins of acupuncture and mo 脈, the experience of the body, and the interplay between medicine and occult culture (Yamada 1998; Li 2001; Kuriyama 1999; Harper 1998). Chin Shih-ch’i’s Medicine, Medical History, and Politics in Ancient China (Zhongguo gudai de yixue yishi yu zhengzhi 中國古代的醫學, 醫史 與政治), one of the latest achievements in the field, moves to a new direction by exploring the discursive function of ancient medical writings with an emphasis on the role of politics in these texts.

Previous works on the political dimension of Chinese medicine tend to focus on the dynamic relation between the body and the state. Manifested in the medical classic Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon (Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經), the anatomy of the body correlates with the bureaucratic hierarchy of the state and the configuration of the universe. In this cosmology, the cultivation of the body and the administration of the state become the integral and interconnected aspects of one enterprise (Sivin 1995a). Although the discussion of the body politic is not lacking in Chin’s book, his main interests lie elsewhere. In particular, Chin emphasizes the discursive nature of the medical texts in ancient China and attempts to identify the ideological, political, and social elements that shaped the writing of these texts. In the introduction, Chin makes his historiographical orientation clear: [End Page 159]

The impact of historical sources does not bear objective and essentialist existence. Besides the possibilities of being preserved or lost by unexpected factors, these sources could also be subject to changes according to the needs of later scholars, that is, changes according to contemporary context and individual concern of the historical participants as well as the readers, the investigators and the compilers of these sources. Consequently, they were either forgotten or remembered, ignored or valued, understood or misconstrued, revered or contested.

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Rather than treating texts as transparent records of reality, Chin regards them as historical objects that have been deliberately produced, modified, and transmitted for specific political and social purposes. Although previous scholars have explored the prescriptive nature of Chinese texts and their function in promoting the establishment of political authority in ancient China, Chin’s book is one of the first to rigorously apply this approach to the study of Chinese medical texts (Lewis 1999; Schaberg 2001). The major goal of the book, therefore, is to identify the ideological frameworks and political aspirations that motivated the writing of medical works in early China.

There are seven chapters in Chin’s book. In addition to an introduction that lays out the methodological considerations and a short epilogue that summarizes the book, the five content chapters focus on five medical texts, respectively, following a reverse chronological order: Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, the bibliographical section in the History of the Han (Hanshu 漢書), the biographies of the physicians Bianque 扁鵲 and Chunyu Yi 淳于意 in the Historical Records (Shiji 史記), the section of medical institutions in the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli 周禮), and the episode of the physician He 醫和 in the Chronicle of Zuo (Zuozhuan 左傳). With his rigorous philological skills, Chin renders a careful and meticulous examination of these texts by situating them in specific historical and social contexts. What follows is a brief summary of Chin’s many insightful findings from these texts.

In chapter 2, Chin offers an in-depth analysis on...

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