The art of medicine in early China : the ancient and medieval origins of a modern archive / Miranda Brown, University of Michigan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Miranda, 1975- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medicine, Chinese--Biography.

Medicine, Chinese.

Medicine, Chinese--History--To 1500.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 237 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this book, Miranda Brown investigates the myths that acupuncturists and herbalists have told about the birth of the healing arts. Moving from the Han (206 BC-AD 220) and Song (960-1279) dynasties to the twentieth century, Brown traces the rich history of Chinese medical historiography and the gradual emergence of the archive of medical tradition. She exposes the historical circumstances that shaped the current image of medical progenitors: the ancient bibliographers, medieval editors, and modern reformers and defenders of Chinese medicine who contributed to the contemporary shape of the archive. Brown demonstrates how ancient and medieval ways of knowing live on in popular narratives of medical history, both in modern Asia and in the West. She also reveals the surprising and often unacknowledged debt that contemporary scholars owe to their pre-modern forebears for the categories, frameworks, and analytic tools with which to study the distant past.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title page; Copyright information; Dedication; Epigraph; Table of contents; List of Illustrations; List of Tables; Acknowledgments; Chronology; Author's Note on Translations and Chinese Text; Introduction; The Medical Fathers - A European Invention?; Research Design; Overview; Part I Before Medical History; 1 Attendant He: Innovator or Persona?; Setting the Stage; Who Was He?; Historical Person or Literary Device?; Personification of an Archetype; Attendant He after the Tradition; 2 Bian Que as a Seer: Political Persuaders and the Medical Imagination; Setting the Stage

Mirror of Contemporary Healing?Urban Legend?; The Sage and the Healer; The Afterlife of an Analogy; 3 Chunyu Yi: Can the Healer Speak?; Setting the Stage; The Healer as an Official?; Whose Voice?; From Official Memorandum to Case Histories; Part II Medical Histories; 4 Liu Xiang: The Imperial Library and the Creation of the Exemplary Healer List; Setting the Stage; Histories of Medicine; Matters of Timing; Conclusion and Discussion; 5 Zhang Ji: The Kaleidoscopic Father; Setting the Stage; Historical Person or Medical Persona?; Matters of Timing; Beyond Song

6 Huangfu Mi: From Innovator to TransmitterSetting the Stage; Where Did the Transmitter Go?; The Emergence of the PEDANT; Conclusion and Discussion; Epilogue: Ancient Histories in the Modern Age; The Modern Context; The New Histories; The Historians and Their Motives; Signs of European Influence; Similarities to Ancient and Medieval Histories; Histories Past and Future; Appendix: A Problematic Preface; Notes; Introduction; 1 Attendant He: Innovator or Persona?; 2 Bian Que as a Seer: Political Persuaders and the Medical Imagination; 3 Chunyu Yi: Can the Healer Speak?

4 Liu Xiang: The Imperial Library and the Creation of the Exemplary Healer List5 Zhang Ji: The Kaleidoscopic Father; 6 Huangfu Mi: From Innovator to Transmitter; Epilogue: Ancient Histories in the Modern Age; Appendix: A Problematic Preface; Works Cited; Pre-1900 Works; Refetences Post-1900; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

ISBN:

1-316-28995-8

1-316-32397-8

1-316-31059-0

1-316-32731-0

1-316-33065-6

1-316-33399-X

1-107-48085-X

1-316-32061-8

1-316-15680-X