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categories that structure our thought, pattern our arguments and proofs, and certify our standards for explanation.”5 Their 4 Howard Chiang work on the construction and transformation of concepts of evidence, scientific objectivity, and personhood has fundamentally reoriented the terrain of the history and philosophy of science and medicine, proving to be an indispensable source of inspiration for a new generation of scholars. Despite this, however, scholars of East Asian science and medicine have not had the chance to come together and direct similarly inspired
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. (Attributed to Pablo Picasso) Introduction: global acupuncture and bodies on treatment Acupuncture is an essential part of East Asian medicine. A peculiar way of diagnosing and treating people via meridians inside their bodies punctuated by regulatory points, it is a simple yet sophisticated art of healing that has been used
) and South-East Asia as well (Loi et al., 2015 ). The denial is a form of reproductive injustice deeply rooted in the cultural belief system governing termination of pregnancy (Chiweshe et al., 2017 ), which often frames it ‘as killing and inevitably destructive of cultural values and traditions’ (Macleod et al., 2011 : 237). These cultural sentiments further manifest as unregulated conscientious objection to termination of pregnancy, where healthcare practitioners abuse their right to freedom of conscience often guided by their morals and beliefs (Amnesty
–47 . Deomampo , D. ( 2016 ). Race, nation and the production of intimacy: transnational ova donation in India , Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique , 24 : 1 , 303–32 . Deomampo , D. ( 2019 ). Racialized commodities: race and value in human egg donation , Medical Anthropology , 38 : 7 , 620–33 . Dow , K. ( 2017 ). ‘The men who made the breakthrough’: how
This collection expands the history of Chinese medicine by bridging the philosophical concerns of epistemology and the history and cultural politics of transregional medical formations. Topics range from the spread of gingko’s popularity from East Asia to the West to the appeal of acupuncture for complementing in-vitro fertilization regimens, from the modernization of Chinese anatomy and forensic science to the evolving perceptions of the clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine.
The individual essays cohere around the powerful theoretical-methodological approach, “historical epistemology,” with which scholars in science studies have already challenged the seemingly constant and timeless status of such rudimentary but pivotal dimensions of scientific process as knowledge, reason, argument, objectivity, evidence, fact, and truth. Yet given that landmark studies in historical epistemology rarely navigate outside the intellectual landscape of Western science and medicine, this book broadens our understanding of its application and significance by drawing on and exploring the rich cultures of Chinese medicine. In studying the globalizing role of medical objects, the contested premise of medical authority and legitimacy, and the syncretic transformations of metaphysical and ontological knowledge, contributors illuminate how the breadth of the historical study of Chinese medicine and its practices of knowledge-making in the modern period must be at once philosophical and transnational in scope.
This book will appeal to students and scholars working in science studies and medical humanities as well as readers who are interested in the broader problems of translation, material culture, and the global circulation of knowledge.
had been studied in East Asia before contact with Western Europe, but “this native endeavour was soon to be dominated by Europeans, with their superior classificatory systems.”55 Yet this superiority was not demonstrated by logic or inherent veracity, as Basalla’s misremembered account would have it.56 The (mis)remembrance of Chinese medicine 173 Yu Yunxiu and Tang Erhe recognized that the “superiority” of scientific medicine was not self-evident in China’s medical marketplace; it must be politically instituted and allied to the State. As Yu said, the problem was
were scandalized to find the US Consulate issuing a special consular report entitled “Proprietary medicine and ointment trade in China,” which began by saying that “No country offers a richer field for the proprietary medicine trade than China,” and asserting that even though the trade was “still in its infancy,” it was already very lucrative.36 Small wonder, then, that Chinese entrepreneurs emerged to take advantage of the business opportunities in this unregulated market. Sherman Cochran’s book, Chinese Medicine Men: Consumer Culture in China and South-East Asia
This volume aims to disclose the political, social and cultural factors that influenced the sanitary measures against epidemics developed in the Mediterranean during the long nineteenth century. The contributions to the book provide new interdisciplinary insights to the booming field of ‘quarantine studies’ through a systematic use of the analytic categories of space, identity and power. The ultimate goal is to show the multidimensional nature of quarantine, the intimate links that sanitary administrations and institutions had with the territorial organization of states, international trade, the construction of national, colonial, religious and professional identities or the configuration of political regimes. The circum-Mediterranean geographical spread of the case studies contained in this volume illuminates the similarities and differences around and across this sea, on the southern and northern shores, in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, English and French-speaking domains. At the same time, it is highly interested in engaging in the global English-speaking community, offering a wide range of terms, sources, bibliography, interpretative tools and views produced and elaborated in various Mediterranean countries. The historical approach will be useful to recognize the secular tensions that still lie behind present-day issues such as the return of epidemics or the global flows of migrants and refugees.
–53) provided an opportunity for a large-scale survey of viral hepatitis. The US Army built a ‘Hepatitis Center’ at its military hospital in Kyoto (Japan), where it intensively treated and researched hepatitis among the US troops in East Asia. Nearly 1,000 US soldiers suffering from acute hepatitis received medical care in the centre. In addition, by the spring of 1951, a ‘hepatitis team’ had been organised by the army, established to study cases of
“timeless advice” handed down from her ancestors, who in turn were endowed with the knowledge of the “Taoist sages from the Mountain” and the fertility goddess “Quan [sic] Yin.”122 Wu relates her teenage experiences, when she lived with her mother’s stepmother, who insisted that Wu eat a particular “post-period breakfast” with chicken and eggs poached in broth with fresh ginger, sesame oil, and rice wine – which Wu now prescribes regularly to her patients and readers. She states that, in East Asian cultures, elders are regarded as “a source of knowledge on how to live a