Overview

A unique collection of 36 chapters on the history of Chinese medical illustrations, this volume will take the reader on a remarkable journey from the imaging of a classical medicine to instructional manuals for bone-setting, to advertising and comic books of the Yellow Emperor. In putting images, their power and their travels at the centre of the analysis, this volume reveals many new and exciting dimensions to the history of medicine and embodiment, and challenges eurocentric histories. At a broader philosophical level, it challenges historians of science to rethink the epistemologies and materialities of knowledge transmission. There are studies by senior scholars from Asia, Europe and the Americas as well as emerging scholars working at the cutting edge of their fields. Thanks to generous support of the Wellcome Trust, this volume is available in Open Access.

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Reviews

'Imagining Chinese Medicine is something quite special, within and beyond Chinese studies. It is a work that systematically applies iconology to the history of knowledge. In addition to its worth as a major contribution to the history of Chinese medicine, science and embodiment, it makes two signal contributions to the broader history of science / knowledge. First, it provides a spectrum of unfamiliar insights that challenge many commonplaces in the still largely Eurocentric history of perception, embodiment, and visual culture. Second, it deploys iconology to powerful effect as a method for generating a rhizomatic, non-linear history of knowledge.(...) This unique, path-breaking collection will set the terms for future studies of medicine and embodiment in Chinese history, and will be an essential work of reference for years to come.' Francesca Bray Professor Emerita of Social Anthropology University of Edinburgh

Author Information

Vivienne Lo is the Director of the UCL China Centre for Health and Humanity (CCHH). Her research focuses on the social and cultural origins of acupuncture and therapeutic exercise. She translates and analyses manuscript material from early and mediaeval China and studies the transmission of scientific knowledge along the so-called Silk Roads through to the modern Chinese medical diaspora. Penelope Barrett is a researcher and translator based in the China Centre for Health and Humanity (CCHH) at University College London (UCL). She has a background in mediaeval European languages and literatures as well as Chinese studies. She is currently pursuing a PhD on 'Bernard Read: Translating medical worlds'.

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