Biography of the Medical Book in Late Imperial China: a View from the Southern Margins of the Qing Empire (2022)
Bretelle-Establet, Florence (Author)
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
Volume: 54
Issue: 1
Pages: 42–116
Physical Details: 42–116
Language: English
Abstract This article seeks to understand why so many medical writings produced in late imperial China have perished and what has prevented others from disappearing. To do so, it focuses on the life of medical writings produced in the southern fringes of the Qing empire. The aim, starting from an analytical framework limited in time and space, is to open up a more general discussion on the history of the medical book in late imperial China. To retrace this history, this article starts from the very act of writing a medical text and then examines the course of this writing’s life, through its printing, and reading. The first part, an examination of a wide sample of medical texts produced in the region, highlights the social diversity of their authors as well as the plurality of objectives that these texts intend to achieve. The second part reconstructs the different steps that a manuscript must go through to be printed. This process, which requires the intervention of influential figures to correct and praise the text, and to finance its printing, is long and explains why most of the manuscripts did not survive, but it has another consequence. As the original text passes through the hands of many people, it collects comments and additions. The third part, which focuses on printed and handwritten annotations in the margins, underlines how printing a medical manuscript is a dynamic process which offers the possibility of integrating allographic elements and contributes to the very making of the text. Analysis of the handwritten annotations left by some readers reveals, in turn, the ability of readers to intervene in the life of medical books, after they have been printed and, in so doing, to update and enrich medical knowledge and practices.
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