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The Imperially Commissioned Golden Mirror of the Orthodox Lineage of Medicine (Yuzuan yizong jinjian 御纂醫宗金鑑), first printed in 1742, was one of the most important and widely circulating works on medicine in late imperial China. This paper analyzes a group of twenty-three medical manuscripts from the nineteenth and early twentieth century that include parts of the Golden Mirror. The findings suggest that most of the manuscripts should not be considered mere copies, but as deliberate selections. They served didactic as well as epistemic functions that differ from, or go beyond, those that could be fulfilled by the printed Golden Mirror (or a faithful manuscript copy alone). This is indicated not only by different content type selections (verse form for memorization or recitation; prose form for study or consultation) and the combination with medical knowledge from other sources, but also by the ways in which these contents were formatted, usually to facilitate reading and navigation. Adjustment, updating or supplementation of Golden Mirror contents likewise functioned epistemically, integrating previous medical knowledge into the medical discourse of the time. Hence, the findings of the present study help to clarify the lasting importance of manuscripts in the age of print, for which possibilities of adapting knowledge to personal interests and requirements seem to have been decisive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous texts were produced roughly between 150 and 1100 CE that introduced Indian medicine to East Asia. These have historically represented a relatively discrete corpus of health-related knowledge, relatively unintegrated into Chinese medicine and often ignored in mainstream Chinese medical historiography. Buddhist texts do not provide straightforward evidence of a unitary tradition of healing that was transplanted from India to China. However, these sources are critical to understanding the history of medicine in medieval China. In addition, it is not an exaggeration to say that this corpus offers one of the most voluminous sources of textual evidence for the transregional communication and reception of medical ideas in first millennium CE Asia that is available anywhere. Despite the fact that over the long term they were not nearly as significant in Chinese medical history as classical medical models, Buddhist ideas and practices deserve more attention than they have received thus far from our field. This brief research note is meant to introduce historians of Chinese medicine to one easily accessible collection of texts that can be used to begin to fill in this 'missing link.'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how "Jesuit medicine" and "Jesuit medical practices" under the Kangxi Emperor's (r. 1662-1722) patronage of Western Learning functioned within a wider context of multi-ethnic medical practices. Missionaries at the court in general, and those specialized in medicine in particular, became medical interlocutors of European medicine to China and of Chinese medicine to Europe. Practicing medicine in the service of the Kangxi Emperor provided them with an opportunity for personal and even intimate access to the Emperor and his environment. Manchu and Chinese Medical Palace Memorials, the main type of primary sources used for this study, bear witness to the transmission of Jesuit medicine and practice to the Kangxi court. By highlighting the private and confidential nature of these documents and the factional court politics they reflect, it is shown how medicine became one of the fields of Western Learning that was systematically patronized by the Emperor. In addition, this article identifies a number of important actors belonging to a wide network of imperial power and privilege. Power and privilege are especially manifest in cases of the health problems of important officials, officers, and members of the imperial family when the Kangxi Emperor took a personal interest in their. illnesses, sometimes even distributing Jesuit medical drugs to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In total, 281 medical and pharmaceutical books, and some journals (including `general' ones, such as the Gazeta de Lisboa) are preserved in the so-called Beitang collection (Peking). These, in the main, originate from the pre-1773 Jesuit collections in Peking and elsewhere. They constitute, together with other written sources, a primary source reflecting the medical aspect of the Jesuit presence and activities in seventeenth till eighteenth century China. It is possible to identify a core of 68 items brought to Peking in 1623. This is followed by a decline (in the number of acquisitions, and probably interest in upgrading the collection), until in 1685 Ferdinand Verbiest tried to provide fresh impulse to book acquisition, without significant results. Yet, medical books continued to arrive until the very end of the Jesuit presence in Peking, apparently more often at the (French) Beitang than the Portuguese college (Nantang), with its strong focus on mathematics, linked to the activities in the Astronomical Bureau of its residents. I try to tease out details of the identity of the readers and their interests, which turn out to be multi-faceted and heterogeneous, due to the relatively long (200 year) period of acquisition. These reflect factors such as the evolution in European medicine and pharmacology, the multi-national composition of the staff, their different professional backgrounds and level of instruction, and the various types of diseases they were confronted with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]