The Art of Medicine in Early China
The Ancient and Medieval Origins of a Modern Archive

This book traces the rich history of Chinese medical historiography and the emergence of the medical tradition archive.

Miranda Brown (Author)

9781107097056, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 April 2015

251 pages, 12 b/w illus. 8 maps 7 tables
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'Through an analysis of six portrayals of figures from antiquity, three belonging to the medical history of the earliest period (Attendant He, Bian Que, and Chunyu Yi) and three from a later time (Liu Xiang, Zhang Ji, and Huangfu Mi), Miranda Brown questions the formation of myths built by acupuncturists and pharmacologists in the context of both Chinese and Western historiography. She brilliantly shows how Western scholars, despite their willingness to be scientific, are dependent on Chinese historians. … The erudition of the author, the richness and diversity of the materials used, the relevance of the epistemological questions, and the originality of the approach are the strengths of this study.' Catherine Despeux, Isis

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.

Part I. Before Medical History: 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?
Part II. Medical Histories: 4. Liu Xiang: the imperial library and the creation of the exemplary healer list
5. Zhang Ji: the kaleidoscopic father
6. Huangfu Mi: from innovator to transmitter
Epilogue: ancient histories in the modern age
Appendix: a problematic preface.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], History of ideas [JFCX], Buddhism [HRE], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Asian history [HBJF]