The English edition of Liu Lihong’s milestone work is a sublime beacon for the profession of Chinese medicine in the 21st century. Classical Chinese Medicine delivers a straightforward critique of the politically motivated “integration” of traditional Chinese wisdom with Western science during the last sixty years, and represents an ardent appeal for the recognition of Chinese medicine as a science in its own right. Professor Liu’s candid presentation has made this book a bestseller in China, treasured not only by medical students and doctors, but by vast numbers of non-professionals who long for a state of health and well-being that is founded in a deeper sense of cultural identity. Oriental medicine education has made great strides in the West since the 1970s, but clear guidelines regarding the “traditional” nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) remain undefined. Classical Chinese Medicine not only delineates the educational and clinical problems faced by the profession in both East and West, but transmits concrete and inspiring guidance on how to effectively engage with ancient texts and designs in the postmodern age. Using the example of the Shanghanlun (Treatise on Cold Damage), one of the most important Chinese medicine classics, Liu Lihong develops a compelling roadmap for holistic medical thinking that links the human body to nature and the universe at large.
The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine is an extensive, interdisciplinary guide to the nature of traditional medicine and healing in the Chinese cultural region, and its plural epistemologies. Established experts and the next generation of scholars interpret the ways in which Chinese medicine has been understood and portrayed from the beginning of the empire (third century BCE) to the globalisation of Chinese products and practices in the present day, taking in subjects from ancient medical writings to therapeutic movement, to talismans for healing and traditional medicines that have inspired global solutions to contemporary epidemics. The volume is divided into seven parts: Longue Durée and Formation of Institutions and Traditions Sickness and Healing Food and Sex Spiritual and Orthodox Religious Practices The World of Sinographic Medicine Wider Diasporas Negotiating Modernity This handbook therefore introduces the broad range of ideas and techniques that comprise pre-modern medicine in China, and the historiographical and ethnographic approaches that have illuminated them. It will prove a useful resource to students and scholars of Chinese studies, and the history of medicine and anthropology. It will also be of interest to practitioners, patients and specialists wishing to refresh their knowledge with the latest developments in the field. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
On a Holland America Grand Voyage aboard the flagship Amsterdam, I had the great fortune of visiting the ancient land of China, now known as the People's Republic of China. This visit enabled me to, for the first time, to walk part of the way of the Great Wall, visit the Old Summer Palace and see Tien An Men Square and the Forbidden City. Besides visiting the capital city, the ship also visited Shanghai and Hong Kong. China is a huge country whose history goes back millennia. The places we visited provided but a glimpse of that history and its current politics. In this volume, I review China's ancient history, with an overview of the many dynasties that made China great. For many years, China stood at the forefront of technological and scientific discovery, known today as the Four Great Discoveries - the compass, making paper, gunpowder, and printing. Each of these transformed the world, in its own way. Yet, the advancement of science and technology did not stay in China. The great conundrum today is exploring the reasons China lost its ability to stand at the helm of such advancement. I explore this issue while reviewing the complexities of how China lived, both in its dynastic and modern periods. Ancient China had civil service examinations as a method to identify the best and brightest minds and then to employ them for service to the emperor. Jinshi, the highest and most difficult examination was so complicated, the successful candidates' name was inscribed on stone, then selected to remain in Beijing in service to the emperor. Such examinations later migrated to other countries in the Far East, then to the West, where it is in common use today. China and its millennium-long history reflect an ancient people who today seek to assert their presence and power on the world stage. Prior to its current form of government, it was forced to capitulate to Western colonial powers. Revolts by the Chinese against such foreign intervention resulted in the Opium Wars, the loss of Hong Kong, and the destruction of its Old Summer Palace. I explore China's bitter past, together with its current belligerence on the world stage as it seeks to redevelop and transform itself, from the ancient Silk Road into the modern OBOR - One Belt; One Road with dramatic effect on many peoples and nations. I also noted the conundrum of seeing tall high-rise clusters of apartment buildings, structures that could house thousands of people, but stand completely empty. Passing these buildings at night was eerie; not a single light or human is visible anywhere. The claim of a surging China, at least in the places I visited, made me wonder if the building boom the media and economists claim is but a bubble, soon to evaporate in the glare of inquiry and reality. Nonetheless, this visit was dramatic in its own way, offering many varieties of the different strata of this complex society. During this visit, I explored the Jewish community, first in Shanghai, then in Hong Kong. Several Jewish passengers joined to attend the Sabbath Service at the Chabad House. We were warmly welcomed and saw a robust community in this remote part of the world. In Hong Kong, we visited several synagogues, noting the pride and activity present in these communities. I explore the history of the Jewish community in these centers, with a special interest in the Jewish ‘Ghetto’ of Shanghai where thousands of European Jews were sheltered during the Nazi’s Final Solution. They were given refuge in Shanghai, and the area they lived in is still visible by way of a museum and plaques indicating where they lived and survived the war years. The enormity of China demands a multi-volume effort to do justice to its geography and history. This is but a small contribution of this ancient land.
This book traces the history of the Chinese concept of "Warm diseases" (wenbing) from antiquity to the SARS epidemic. Following wenbing from its birth to maturity and even life in modern times Marta Hanson approaches the history of Chinese medicine from a new angle. She explores the possibility of replacing older narratives that stress progress and linear development with accounts that pay attention to geographic, intellectual, and cultural diversity. By doing so her book integrates the history of Chinese medicine into broader historical studies in a way that has not so far been attempted, and addresses the concerns of a readership much wider than that of Chinese medicine specialists. The persistence of wenbing and other Chinese disease concepts in the present can be interpreted as resistance to the narrowing of meaning in modern biomedical nosology. Attention to conceptions of disease and space reveal a previously unexamined discourse the author calls the Chinese geographic imagination. Tracing the changing meanings of "Warm diseases" over two thousand years allows for the exploration of pre-modern understandings of the nature of epidemics, their intersection with this geographic imagination, and how conceptions of geography shaped the sociology of medical practice and knowledge in late imperial China. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine opens a new window on interpretive themes in Chinese cultural history as well as on contemporary studies of the history of science and medicine beyond East Asia.
The Encyclopedia of Taoism provides comprehensive coverage of Taoist religion, thought and history, reflecting the current state of Taoist scholarship. Taoist studies have progressed beyond any expectation in recent years. Researchers in a number of languages have investigated topics virtually unknown only a few years previously, while others have surveyed for the first time textual, doctrinal and ritual corpora. The Encyclopedia presents the full gamut of this new research. The work contains approximately 1,750 entries, which fall into the following broad categories: surveys of general topics; schools and traditions; persons; texts; terms; deities; immortals; temples and other sacred sites. Terms are given in their original characters, transliterated and translated. Entries are thoroughly cross-referenced and, in addition, 'see also' listings are given at the foot of many entries. Attached to each entry are references taking the reader to a master bibliography at the end of the work. There is chronology of Taoism and the whole is thoroughly indexed. There is no reference work comparable to the Encyclopedia of Taoism in scope and focus. Authored by an international body of experts, the Encyclopedia will be an essential addition to libraries serving students and scholars in the fields of religious studies, philosophy and religion, and Asian history and culture.
The Shang Han Lun has been a primary treatment theory and practice source for nearly two millenia. Its author, Zhang Zhong Jing, has been named the “Chinese Hippocrates” to highlight the depth and breadth of his contribution to traditional Chinese drug therapy. This edition features the Chinese text, Pinyin transliteration, and an English translation of the entire Song Dynasty text, the content and textual order most used in Asia. Just as in Chinese language editions, it is fully supplemented with notes and commentaries. The notes describe the clinical symptoms Zhang Zhong Jing associated with the Chinese terms. For example, modern interpretations of a “moderate” pulse often refer to the speed of its beats. The same term, when used in the Shang Han Lun, refers to a pulse that is loose, soft, and harmonious. Such notes provide practitioners with the clinical observations necessary to properly apply the information. The commentaries further enhance the text’s clinical utility by explaining the theoretical and practical foundations behind the lines of text. Because entire bodies of theory and practice can be associated with the terms and expressions used in canonical works like the Shang Han Lun, commentaries have become a standard means of knowledge acquisition for Asian students. The commentaries in this edition serve exactly the same purpose, greatly enhancing its utility. The introductory matter explains the background of the text, the conceptual structure of its contents, and the problems of exegesis. The appendices are designed to assist those studying Chinese and the glossary and the full Pinyin-English index make this an easily accessed reference.
Although Chinese medicine is assumed to be a timeless healing tradition, the encounter with modern biomedicine threatened its very existence and led to many radical changes. Prescriptions for Virtuosity tells the story of how doctors of Chinese medicine have responded to the global dominance of biomedicine and developed new forms of virtuosity to keep their clinical practice relevant in contemporary Chinese society. Based on extensive ethnographic and historical research, the book documents the strategies of Chinese medicine doctors to navigate postcolonial power inequalities. Doctors have followed two seemingly contradictory courses of action. First, they have emphasized the unique “Chinese” characteristics of their practice, defining them against the perceived strengths of biomedicine, and producing an ontological divide between the two medical systems. These oppositions have inadvertently marginalized Chinese medicine, making it seem appropriate for clinical use only when biomedical solutions are lacking. Second, doctors have found points of convergence to facilitate the blending of the two medical practices, producing innovative solutions to difficult clinical problems. Prescriptions for Virtuosity examines how the postcolonial condition can generate not only domination but hybridity. Karchmer shows, for example, how the clinical methodology of “pattern discrimination and treatment determination” bianzheng lunzhi, which is today celebrated as the quintessential characteristic of Chinese medicine, is a twentieth-century invention. When subjected to the institutional standardizations of hospital practice, bianzheng lunzhi can lead to an impoverished form of medicine. But in the hands of a virtuoso physicians, it becomes a dynamic tool for moving between biomedicine and Chinese medicine to create innovative new therapies.
