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

256 Pages·2015·5.12 MB·English

by  Miranda Brown

THE ART OF MEDICINE IN EARLY CHINA
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
premodern forbearers for the categories, frameworks, and analytic tools with
which to study the distant past.
Miranda Brown is an associate professor of Asian languages and cultures
at the University of Michigan. She has published numerous articles on
various aspects of Chinese medical and cultural history in both English and
Chinese. She is the author of The Politics of Mourning in Early China (2007)
and the coauthor of A Brief History of Chinese Civilization (2012, with Conrad
Schirokauer). She is a coeditor of Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the
Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts, a journal that she founded with leading
U.S. scholars.

THE ART OF MEDICINE

IN EARLY CHINA
THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL
ORIGINS OF A MODERN ARCHIVE
MIRANDA BROWN
University of Michigan
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA
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© Miranda Brown 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brown, Miranda, 1975–, author.
The art of medicine in early China : the ancient and medieval origins
of a modern archive / Miranda Brown.
p. ; cm.
Chapter 1 of this book was originally published in Medical History, volume 56, no. 3
(2012). Chapter 4 of this book was originally published in Chang'an 26 BCE : From
Dreams to Ditches (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-09705-6 (hbk.)
I. Medical history. II. Chang'an 26 BCE. III. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Medicine in Literature – China. 2. Medicine, Chinese Traditional –
history – China. 3. Physicians – China – Biography. 4. History, Ancient – China.
5. History, Medieval – China. WZ 70 JC6]
R604.A1
610.92′251–dc23 2014045601
ISBN 978-1-107-09705-6 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For J-Baobao
Chapter 1 of this book was originally published as “Who Was He?

Reflections on China’s First Medical ‘Naturalist,’ ” Med. Hist. 56.3
(2012):  366–89. Reproduced with permission from Cambridge
University Press.
Chapter  4 of this book was originally published as “Looking
Backward:  Explaining the Rise of a Medical Tradition in Han
China.” In Griet VanKeerberghen and Michael Nylan eds., Chang’an
26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2015). Reproduced with permission from University of
Washington Press.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations page ix
List of Tables x
Acknowledgments xi
Chronology xiii
Author’s Note on Translations and Chinese Text xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
PART I BEFORE MEDICAL HISTORY
1 . Attendant He: Innovator or Persona? . . . . . . . . . 21
2 . Bian Que as a Seer: Political Persuaders
and the Medical Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 . Chunyu Yi: Can the Healer Speak? . . . . . . . . . . . 63
PART II MEDICAL HISTORIES
4 . Liu Xiang: The Imperial Library and the
Creation of the Exemplary Healer List . . . . . . . . 89
5 . Zhang Ji: The Kaleidoscopic Father . . . . . . . . . 110
6 . Huangfu Mi: From Innovator to Transmitter . . . 130
vii
TAbLE OF CONTENTS
Epilogue: Ancient Histories in the
Modern Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Appendix: A Problematic Preface 167
Notes 179
Works Cited 209
Index 231
viii