History 294B / History 394B
Spring 1999
Undergraduate / Graduate Colloquium
Wednesday 3:15-5:05
History Corner (Building 200), Room 230
Roger Hart
Office: History Corner, Room 27
Office hours: T Th 2:00-3:00, and by appointment
This course adopts an interdisciplinary approach--drawing on cultural history, anthropology, gender studies, and philosophy--to the study of Chinese medicine analyzed in its intellectual, social, and cultural context. The course will emphasize the following components: (i) reading primary texts (in translation); (ii) a historical overview of the development of Chinese medicine; (iii) examining different methodological approaches; and (iv) critically assessing contemporary debates over Chinese medicine. We will also examine emerging trends in current research.
The course is designed for students interested in the history, sociology, and anthropology of medicine, East Asian studies, or studies of 'non-Western' cultures.
All primary sources listed are be available in Chinese and in English translation; no knowledge of Chinese is required for the course.
Class attendance is mandatory. Students may choose one of the following two options:
(1) Before class write a brief summary of the readings, to be turned in at the conclusion of class. Notes on each of the readings should usually be two short paragraphs--one summarizing the central argument and one offering critical analysis--for a total of 2-5 pages per week. Students should complete notes for eight of the ten weeks. These will be graded (distinguished, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory) and will serve as the basis for class discussions. Grading: reading assignments 70%; class participation 30%.
(2) Complete a final paper of 15 pp. for undergraduates and 20 pp. for graduate students. Students should consult me as early as possible on possible topics. An outline and bibliography are due by May 19; a first draft must be turned in by June 2; and the final draft is due June 9. Grading: final paper 70%; class participation 30%.
Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History, 960-1665 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
All required articles and books will be available at the Reserve Desk at Meyer Library, call number MEPC 5313, with a 2 hour loan period.
Richard J. Ko, "Adulterants in Asian Patent Medicines" New England Journal of Medicine 339 no. 12 (September 17, 1998): 847.
Marcia Angell and Jerome P. Kassirer, "Alternative Medicines: The Risks of Untested and Unregulated Remedies," New England Journal of Medicine 339 no. 12 (September 17, 1998): 839-841.
Roger Hart, "Beyond Science and Civilization: A Post-Needham Critique," Chinese Science 16 (in press).
Nathan Sivin, "Science and Medicine in Imperial China--The State of the Field," Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 1 (February 1988): 41-90.
Oracle bone inscriptions in Keightley's article (listed below).
David N. Keightley, "Science of the Ancestors," forthcoming in Hart, ed. Cultural Studies of Chinese Science, Technology and Medicine.
Donald Harper, "The Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of the Second Century B.C.," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47, no. 2 (1987): 539-593.
Nathan Sivin, "State, Cosmos, and Body in the Last Three Centuries B.C.," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 55 no. 1 (1995): 5-37.
Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 1-50.
Nathan Sivin, "Chinese Alchemy and the Manipulation of Time," reprinted in Sivin, ed., Science and Technology in East Asia (New York: Science History Publications, 1977), 109-122.
Selections from Huang di nei jing su wen, ling shu, tai su, in Paul U. Unschuld, Introductory Readings in Classical Chinese Medicine: Sixty Texts with Vocabulary and Translation, a Guide to Research Aids and a General Glossary (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988).
Nathan Sivin, "Huang ti nei ching," in Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, vol. 2, Early China Special Monograph Series (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993).
Selections from Paul U. Unschuld, Approaches to Traditional Chinese Medical Literature: Proceedings of an International Symposium on Translation Methodologies and Terminologies (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989).
Selections from Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, trans. Ilza Veith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).
i) Please read very carefully the translations of the Huang di nei jing in Unschuld. Even if you do not know Chinese, look through the glossaries after each passage to get some sense of the terminology and possible problems in translations. Also read his introductory essays describing various aspects of Chinese medicine. Then write a 1-2 page summary and analysis of the medical techniques in the Huang di nei jing, based on the translations you have read. Keep your analysis as close to the text as possible.
ii) Sivin offers an analysis of the compilation of the Huang di nei jing. Write one paragraph summarizing the history of its composition.
iii) Write one paragraph summarizing the problems of translation and one paragraph analyzing possible solutions, based on the articles from Unschuld, Approaches to Traditional Chinese Medical Literature.
Selections from Paul U. Unschuld, Approaches to Traditional Chinese Medical Literature.
Selections from Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, with Commentaries by Chinese and Japanese Authors from the Third Through the Twentieth Century, translated and annotated by Paul U. Unschuld, Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
D. C. Epler, "Bloodletting in early Chinese medicine and its relation to the origin of acupuncture," in Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1980).
Donald Harper, "The conception of illness in early Chinese medicine, as documented in newly discovered 3rd and 2nd century B.C. manuscripts. Part 1," in Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften (1990).
Paul U. Unschuld, "Concepts of Illness in Ancient China: The Case of Demonological Medicine," Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 5 no. 2 (1980): 117-132.
Lu Gwei-djen and Joseph Needham, "Records of Diseases in Ancient China," in Don Brothwell and A. T. Sandison, ed. Diseases in Antiquity: A Survey of Diseases, Injuries and Surgery of Early Populations (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1967).
Selections from Unschuld, Medicine in China.
Donald Harper, [Mawangdui medical texts], in Edward L. Shaughnessy, ed. New Sources of Early Chinese History: An Introduction to the Reading of Inscriptions and Manuscripts, Early China Special Monograph Series, no. 3. (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1997).
Michel Strickmann, "On the Alchemy of T'ao Hung-ching," in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, ed. Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 123-192.
Selections from Unschuld, Introductory Readings.
Selections from Sun Simiao, Essential Subtleties on the Silver Sea: The Yin-hai jing-wei, A Chinese Classic on Ophthalmology, translated and annotated by Jürgen Kovacs and Paul U. Unschuld (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
Robert P. Hymes, "Not Quite Gentlemen? Doctors in Sung and Yuan," Chinese Science 8 (1987): 9-76.
Angela Leung, "Transmission of Medical Knowledge from the Sung to the Ming," forthcoming in Richard von Glahn and Paul Smith, eds. Song-Yuan-Ming Transition.
Cullen, Christopher. 1993. "Patients and Healers in Late Imperial China: Evidence from the Jinpingmei," History of Science 31, no. 2: 99-150.
Selections from Unschuld, Medicine in China.
Selections from Unschuld, Introductory Readings.
Ming cases appended to Zeitlin's article (listed below).
Judith Zeitlin, "Ming Case Histories and the Literary Structure of Medical Authority: The Writings of Sun Yikui," forthcoming in Hart, ed. Cultural Studies of Chinese Science, Technology and Medicine.
Charlotte Furth, "Bodily Androgyny and Gender Differences in Ming Dynasty Clinical Narratives," forthcoming in Hart, ed. Cultural Studies of Chinese Science, Technology and Medicine.
Ulrike Unschuld, "Traditional Chinese Pharmacology: An Analysis of its Development in the 13th Century," Isis (1977) 68: 224-248.
Selections from Unschuld, Medicine in China.
Helen Dunstan, "The Late Ming Epidemics: A Preliminary Survey," Ch'ing shih wen-t'i 3 no. 3 (1975): 1-59.
Angela Leung, "Organized Medicine in Ming-Qing China: State and Private Medical Institutions in the Lower Yangzi Region," Late Imperial China 8, no. 1 (1987): 134-166.
Selections from Unschuld, Introductory Readings.
Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Later Imperial China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), Part 3, "Meanings of Motherhood: Reproductive Technologies and Their Uses" (pp. 275-368) and "Conclusion: Gynotechnics and Civilization" (pp. 369-380).
Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History, 960-1665 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), chapters 4-9 (pp. 134-312).
Charlotte Furth, "Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century China," Late Imperial China 9 no. 2 (1988): 1-31.
Nathan Sivin, Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (University of Michigan China Center, 1987), selections.
Sean Lei, "From Changshan to a New Antimalarial Drug--Re-networking Chinese Drugs and Excluding Chinese Doctors," MS.
Judith Farquhar, "'Medicine and the Changes Are One': An Essay on Divination Healing with Commentary," Chinese Science 13 (1996): 107-134.
Judith Farquhar, "Multiplicity, Point of View, and Responsibility in Traditional Chinese Healing," in Angela Zito and Tani E. Barlow, eds., Body, Subject & Power in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
American Herbal Pharmacology Delegation and Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China (U.S.), Herbal Pharmacology in the People's Republic of China : A Trip Report of the American Herbal Pharmacology Delegation: Submitted to the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China (Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1975).
Nathan Sivin, Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (University of Michigan China Center, 1987), selections.
Emily Martin Ahern, "Chinese-Style and Western-Style Doctors in Northern Taiwan," Charles Leslie, "Pluralism and Integration in the Indian and Chinese Medical Systems," and Arthur Kleinman, "Problems and Prospects in Comparative Cross-Cultural Medical and Psychiatric Studies," in Kleinman et al., eds., Culture and Healing in Asian Societies: Anthropological, Psychiatric, and Public Health Studies (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978).
Judith Farquhar, "Re-writing Traditional Medicine in Post-Mao China" in Don Bates, ed., Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Kenneth S. Warren, "'Farewell to the Plague Spirit': Chairman Mao's Crusade against Schistosomiasis," in John Z. Bowers, J. William Hess, and Nathan Sivin, eds., Science and Medicine in Twentieth-Century China: Research and Education, Science, Medicine, and Technology in East Asia 3 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chines Studies, University of Michigan, 1988). On schistosomiasis, see the web page of the Schistosomiasis Research Group, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge.
Arthur Kleinman, Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry, Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care no. 3 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), chapter 9, "The Healing Process."
Judith Farquhar, Knowing Practice: The Clinical Encounter of Chinese Medicine, Studies in the Ethnographic Imagination (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
Nathan Sivin, Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (University of Michigan China Center, 1987), selections.
Journal of the American Medical Association 280 no. 18 (November 11, 1998):
David M. Eisenberg, Roger B. Davis, Susan L. Ettner, Scott Appel, et al., "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use in the United States, 1990-1997";
F. Cardini and H. Weixin, "Moxibustion for Correction of Breech Presentation: A Randomized Controlled Trial";
A. Bensoussan, N. J. Talley, M. Hing, R. Menzies, A. Guo and M. Ngu, "Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Chinese Herbal Medicine: A Randomized Controlled Trial";
J. C. Shlay, K. Chaloner, M. B. Max, et al., "Acupuncture and Amitriptyline for Pain Due to HIV-Related Peripheral Neuropathy: A Randomized Controlled Trial"
P. B. Fontanarosa, G. D. Lundberg, "Alternative Medicine Meets Science";
D. M. Studdert, D. M. Eisenberg, F. H. Miller, D. A. Curto, T. J. Kaptchuk, T. A. Brennan, "Medical Malpractice Implications of Alternative Medicine";
H. Yamashita, H. Tsukayama, Y. Tanno, K. Nishijo, "Adverse Events Related to Acupuncture";
P. Fisher, "Evidence Influencing British Health Authorities' Decisions in Purchasing Complementary Medicine R. van Haselen."
Medical Student Journal of the American Medical Association 279 no. 9 (March 4, 1998):
J. H. Lin, "Evaluating the Alternatives";
M. A. Johnson, "Homeopathy: Another Tool in the Bag";
W. Jonas, "Alternative Medicine and the Conventional Practitioner";
M. C. Oz, MD, G. C. Whitworth, and E. H. Liu, "Complementary Medicine in the Surgical Wards";
"Interested in the Alternatives? Here's Where to Learn More."
M. S. Wetzel, D. M. Eisenberg, T. J. Kaptchuk, "Courses Involving Complementary and Alternative Medicine at US Medical Schools," Journal of the American Medical Association 280 no. 9 (September 2, 1998), pp. 784-787.
Edward W. Campion, "Why Unconventional Medicine?" New England Journal of Medicine 328 no. 4 (January 28, 1993), p. 282.
Margaret A. Naeser, review of Giovanni Maciocia, Practice of Chinese Medicine: The treatment of diseases with acupuncture and Chinese herbs (New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1994), New England Journal of Medicine 333 no. 4, p. 262.
Edgard O. Espinoza and Bob Bleasdell, "Arsenic and mercury in traditional Chinese herbal balls," New England Journal of Medicine 333 no. 12, p. 803.
Please write a short (5 pp.) essay on Chinese medicine as a form of complementary medicine in the U.S., using the readings from this week as evidence for your arguments. Try to synthesize and incorporate into your paper as much of the material from these readings as you can; you should also include references to earlier readings in the course where relevant. Also review the readings "Adulterants in Asian Patent Medicines" and "Alternative Medicines: The Risks of Untested and Unregulated Remedies" from the first week (links are above on the syllabus).