Article ID: CBB000932785

“Manchu Anatomy”: Anatomical Knowledge and the Jesuits in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century China (2009)

unapi

Beginning in the last decade of the seventeenth century, the French Jesuits Joachim Bouvet and Dominique Parrenin instructed the Kangxi Emperor in contemporary anatomical knowledge. Parrenin's instruction resulted in a Manchu anatomical atlas containing Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. This paper uses this case to examine the role of anatomy in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European understandings of China and its medicine. I argue that the authority which Bouvet and Parrenin afforded anatomical knowledge gained from dissection informed their comparisons of Chinese and European medical learning. I also examine ways in which illustrations of this atlas were made to demonstrate the certainty of European anatomy and its applicability to Chinese bodies. Production of the `Manchu Anatomy' was thus an important moment in the process through which anatomy became a category in European understandings of China and its medicine during and after the eighteenth century.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000932785/

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Authors & Contributors
Jami, Catherine
Han, Qi
Cams, Mario
Statman, Alexander
Haohao Zhu
Wu, Huiyi
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
Ziran Kexueshi Yanjiu (Studies in the History of Natural Sciences)
Studies in Dialectics of Nature
Lishi yuyan yanjiuso jikan (Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica)
Korean Journal of Medical History
Imago Mundi: A Review of Early Cartography
Publishers
Shanghai san lian shu dian
University of Chicago Press
Oxford University Press
Brill
Concepts
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
East Asia, civilization and culture
Medicine
Astronomy
Transmission of ideas
Missionaries and missions
People
Kangxi, Emperor of China
Yi Ik
Xue, Fengzuo
Vesalius, Andreas
Ricci, Matteo
Hallerstein, Augustin von
Time Periods
17th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
18th century
Ming dynasty (China, 1368-1644)
16th century
Places
China
Korea
Beijing (China)
Europe
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Académie Royale des Sciences (France)
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