Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China (Needham Research Institute Series) [Paperback]
Author: Marta Hanson | Language: English | ISBN: 0415835356 | Format: PDF, EPUB
Direct download links available Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China (Needham Research Institute Series) [Paperback] for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
This book traces the history of the Chinese concept of "Warm diseases" (wenbing) from antiquity to the SARS epidemic. Following wenbing from its birth to maturity and even life in modern times Marta Hanson approaches the history of Chinese medicine from a new angle. She explores the possibility of replacing older narratives that stress progress and linear development with accounts that pay attention to geographic, intellectual, and cultural diversity. By doing so her book integrates the history of Chinese medicine into broader historical studies in a way that has not so far been attempted, and addresses the concerns of a readership much wider than that of Chinese medicine specialists.
The persistence of wenbing and other Chinese disease concepts in the present can be interpreted as resistance to the narrowing of meaning in modern biomedical nosology. Attention to conceptions of disease and space reveal a previously unexamined discourse the author calls the Chinese geographic imagination. Tracing the changing meanings of "Warm diseases" over two thousand years allows for the exploration of pre-modern understandings of the nature of epidemics, their intersection with this geographic imagination, and how conceptions of geography shaped the sociology of medical practice and knowledge in late imperial China.
Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine opens a new window on interpretive themes in Chinese cultural history as well as on contemporary studies of the history of science and medicine beyond East Asia.
- Series: Needham Research Institute Series
- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (January 29, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0415835356
- ISBN-13: 978-0415835350
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,527,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This book is an extended history of wenbing, "warm illness(es)" or Warm Disease, a broad category that became important about 800 years ago in Chinese medical discourse. It recently has come to include SARS. Warm illness, or illnesses, was or were particularly common in the south. This area was considered a hot region with much contagion, where people would become weak and run-down. Exile to the far south was dreaded as a virtual sentence of death in old Imperial days. Only with the massive settlement of the south did warm illness(es) appear on the physicians' docket. Previously, Cold Damage was more salient. Geography, and specifically Chinese concepts of geography, are therefore essential to understanding these categories and treatments.
In the Ming Dynasty, wenbing had a field day as a matter for concerns, herbal drug prescriptions, and warnings. This continued into Qing and it continues today. Traditional medicine meshes with biomedical treatment in that SARS is now treated both with biomedical remedies and with Chinese herbs; the latter are alleged to help the body withstand and/or recover from the virus.
The book thus stands in the category of history or biography of a particular disease concept--one of the most fascinating areas of medical history. Nothing is more interesting than watching people try their hardest to figure out how to stop illness: what is going on, what is causing this dreadful sickness, what is exacerbating it, and above all what can stop it. Clinicians in China tried every sort of herb that could treat warm illnesses. They claimed success--on what basis we can usually no longer tell, since we do not usually know what biomedical entities were involved in the pre-SARS days.
No comments:
Post a Comment