China
William C. Summers
Introduction
The analytical categories “science” and “medicine”, as understood in the contemporary Western sense, do not map well onto those activities in traditional East Asia which were aimed at understanding and manipulating the natural world. The modern Western notions of “science” and “medicine” in their 20th-21st century form do not have accurate analogies for most of premodern East Asia. Thus, questions such as “why did the scientific revolution not happen in China?” are simply not very useful or, in fact, meaningful. One of the really informative aspects of cross-cultural studies is the realization that the study, understanding, and mastery of the natural world does not have a unique and universal trajectory applicable to all cultures. While it is often convenient to speak of “Chinese Science” or “Chinese Medicine”, it is important to keep in mind that these terms are simply shorthand, using familiar Western categories, for a more nuanced and complex set of conceptual categories. What the peoples of East Asia have done since earliest times, and what they have in common with all known civilizations, in their various ways of making sense of the natural world. Today we call those activities, in a broad sense, “science”. It is important, however, to keep in mind the limitations and pitfalls that uncritical applications of such concepts, cultural assumptions and philosophic principles can produce when applied to the study of cultures of other places and other times.
Archeological evidence for scientific and technological knowledge in China extends at least to the Neolithic period (ca. 6000 BCE) while written material is available from as early as the Shang period (ca. 1700 - 1025 BCE). Early traditions, dating from the Shang, include divinations written in the precursor to modern Chinese script on flat bones and turtle shell (“oracle bones”) and technically-advanced bronze castings. The Zhou dynasty (1122 - 256 BCE) was characterized by the development of the dominant philosophical schools of traditional Chinese thought: Daoism, Confucianism, Moism, and Legalism. By the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 CE) comprehensive cosmological views of the universe had been developed by the Daoists based on a few universal principles: yin and yang complementarity, the relations and correspondences of wu xing (the five phases of the universe: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), together with notions of qi (vital force, or “matter-energy”) and li (natural order, or organizing principle). The most coherant and comprehensive exposition of this basic cosmology is found in the Huai-nan tzu (ca. 139 BCE), a summary and compilation of learning sponsored by Liu An, King of Huai-nan.
One theme in Daoist thought which is of major interest is the quest for elixirs of immortality. This activity was both theoretical and experimental, and led to the development of the Chinese “alchemical” tradition, not concerned with transmutation of metals as in the West, but in the formation of substances which could confer immortality and sagehood. Much knowledge of the properties and behavior of natural substances emerged from this work. This tradition started at least 2 millenia ago and was well-established by the end of the Three Kingdoms period (220-265 CE) when Ge Hong (Ko Hung) compiled his well-known work on daoist “alchemical” techniques, Bao pu tzi (Pao-p’u tzu) (ca. 317 CE).
Another approach to the natural world was through the organization of plants, animals, and minerals according to their uses by mankind in the form of books called “ben cao” (often translated as pharmacopoeia). The ben cao are texts that include natural history, biological classifications, and practical and medical uses of natural materials, in modern terms, biology, geology and medicine. By the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644 CE), great, comprehensive ben cao texts had been compiled that are still used in China today, for example, the Ben cao gang mu (1596 CE), often called “The Great Pharmacopoeia”, by Li Shi-zhen.
Also during the Ming dynasty, China took an active interest in the learning of the West that was brought by Jesuit missionaries. Because of the importance of calendrical science in Chinese cosmology and thought and its role in political affairs, the Ming rulers were especially interested in the recent advances in European astronomy and the associated mathematical approaches. The interplay of two quite different cosmologies during this period gives an especially interesting opportunity to examine the role of politics, culture and tradition on the development of science and the change in beliefs about nature.
By the time of the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911 CE) the many interactions between China and the West provoked reactions within China, at one extreme, to adopt Western scientific learning in toto, and at the other extreme, to reject it completely in favor of indigenous traditions. While other Asian countries (e.g., Japan and India) were able to follow their own paths to modernization, China was racked by internal strife and external assaults from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. During this period of about 100 years, China struggled to modernize its science, education, technology and industries under the handicaps of civil wars and rebellions, and probably most importantly, lack of capital for investment in these essential activities. For the historian of science, then, this period in Chinese history affords a clear example of the role of economic and social factors in the course of the scientific enterprise.
In the twentieth century, China has struggled to find its “national philosophy of life” through wrenching debates in the early 1920s and to decide on the proper balance between politics and science since the 1950s. The role of Marxist-Leninist-Mao ideology in scientific inquiry is clear in the case of genetic research in China under the influence of the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko. Likewise, the role of national politics can be studied in scientific and technological projects such as the development of nuclear weapons and the recent construction of the massive hydrological project on the Yangtze river known as the Three Gorges Dam.
One approach to the study of some of these themes might be organized around the Chinese achievements in cosmology, technology, and modern science.
The stability and durability of the Chinese cosmology—that is, the yin-yang and wu xing model—is quite remarkable. It has survived for over 2000 years and is still alive and well in both folk beliefs and in traditional Chinese medicine. It has wide explanatory power and adaptability.
The achievements of Chinese artisans, engineers, and scientists in papermaking, metallurgy, hydrology, agriculture and medicine are well-described in the Western literature and provide interesting comparisons with Western approaches to similar practical problems.
The particular Chinese way of approaching the problems of how science relates to politics and the state is another possible way to study science in China. The interplay of ideology of the state and culture and the ideologies of scientific inquiry has been of concern in China for a long time. While it has surfaced in the twentieth century in more obvious ways (e.g., genetics, economics, physics), in earlier times daoist research on elixirs of immortality had political overtones, and “independent thinking” often led to politically subversive ideas.
Another approach to better understand science in China is to study the works and lives of major figures for whom significant descriptive material is available in English. Four such individuals, representing chronologically different periods, are the daoist “alchemist,” Ge Hong (283-343), the Sung polymath, Shen Gua (1031-1095), the great ben cao author, Li Shi-zhen (1518-1593), and the modern architect of public health in China, Wu Lien-te (1879-1960).
Resources
The available literature on science in China falls into two main categories: scholarly work and popularized works on exoticism. Western readers have been fascinated with tales of the exotic East at least since the days of Marco Polo. Even today, there is a large market for uncritical accounts and explanations of the “mysteries of the East”. Much of this is published under the rubric of health advice or “Eastern Religion”. The serious student of the history of science and medicine in East Asia should evaluate this literature with the same level of criticism as any other scholarly work, that is, based on its documentation ane argumentation.
A history of Chinese civilization which has more than the usual focus on the history of ideas and events in history of science, medicine and technology is the comprehensive survey by Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1996. The major reference source in the study of history of science in China is the massive series compiled under the leadership of Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge University Press, 1954- . This multi-volume work, still in progress, is organized into two introductory volumes followed by individual volumes devoted to specific scientific fields, e.g., mathematics, meteorology, botany, etc. Abridgements of some of these volumes, useful as classroom texts, have been prepared by Colin Ronan together with Joseph Needham under the title The Shorter Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge University Press, 1978 - . A recent collection of useful essays by contemporary scholars is: Morris F. Low, Editor, “Beyond Joseph Needham: Science, Technology, and Medicine in East and Southeast Asia,” Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 13, 1998.
Current scholarship on the history of science in China is published in a wide variety of places, apparently depending on the scholarly affiliation of the author. Some work appears in journals devoted to Asian studies, some in those on history of science and medicine, and some in sources covering particular disciplines, e.g., philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, etc. One central source for this scholarship is the annual Current Bibliography, published by Isis, the journal of the History of Science Society. The only journal in English devoted to this field is Chinese Science, published by the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (ISHEASTM). The Newsletter for the History of Chinese Science is published by the Institute of History, Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and is in Chinese.
International meetings are organized periodically by the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. The address of the society is ISHEASTM/SIHSTMAO, Instituts d’Extrême-Orient, 52 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France. A major center for scholarly research in this field is the Needham Research Institute, 8 Sylvester Road, Cambridge CB8 9AF, United Kingdom. The URL for the Needham Research Institute website is http://www.nri.org.uk/. The NRI publishes a periodic newsletter which is free upon application. An internet bulletin board on East Asian Science, moderated by Nathan Sivin at the University of Pennsylvania, can be contacted at listproc@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. A website devoted to history of Chinese Medicine is at http://www.albion.edu/history/chimed/.
Day 1: Origins of Chinese Scientific Thought - I: Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism
Theme: Man and nature
The period known as the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771- ca 453 BCE), when the Zhou moved their capital from the Wei valley to Loyang in the east of China, was when the Chinese world view was beginning to take shape. In the following period of political fragmentation, known as the Warring States period (453- ca 221 BCE), the major schools of Chinese thought were developed and refined. Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Moism all had their origins in this period. Buddhism, an important strain of Chinese thought, was a later import from India (1st-3rd c. CE). The aims of each of these schools of thought was to understand man's relationship to nature and to other human beings. Thus, theories of man as a social and moral entity and man as part of the universe were developed. To understand the background to later refinements of Chinese views of nature, it is important to have in mind the basic assumptions and world-views upon which these later ideas were predicated. Key concepts include the emphasis on relational aspects of the world, the notion of a parallelism between the earthly realm and a heavenly realm, and many forms of correlational thinking leading to elaborate theories of correspondences. In addition to general background reading in the cultural history of this period (e.g., Gernet, Chaps. 1-5), a selection from one of the three great Confucian thinkers, Hsün Tzu (fl. 298-238 CE) illustrates a strongly realistic view of nature which attempts to channel the Confucian tradition into less superstitious and more rational directions. From this selection one can see Hsün's own rationalist position as well as something of the prevalent ideas of his time against which he was arguing.
Student Reading
"Rationalism and realism in Hsün Tzu," in DeBary, Chan and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 112-127.
Ronan and Needham, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), Chapters 4-5 (pp. 19-57).
Extended Reading
J. Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Chapters 1-5, pp. 37-128.
Day 2: Origins of Chinese scientific thought - II: The Huai nan tzu
Theme: A description of the Chinese world
The Huai nan tzu is one of the earliest texts which deals in a comprehensive and consistent way to formulate a view of what we would call nature. It is known in various editions and has been extensively studied and commented on by scholars in China since its composition in about 139 BCE. Unfortunately, it is not available in a complete translation in English even now. Recently, two scholarly translations of selected chapters have appeared, and we will read the introduction to the Huai nan tzu from Le Blanc's book. We will also read selections from the Huai nan tzu translated by an eminent Western scholar which illustrates the detail in which Chinese thought considered cosmological questions, and the complexity of a modern critical translation of an ancient text.
The Huai nan tzu has 21 chapters as follows (from Le Blanc):
1. Searching out Tao
2. The Beginning of Reality
3. The Patterns of Heaven
4. The Forms of Earth
5. The Seasonal Regulations
6. Peering into the Obscure
7. The Seminal Breath and Spirit
8. The Fundamental Norm
9. The Craft of the Ruler
10. On Erroneous Designations
11. Placing Customs on a Par
12. The Responses of Tao
13. A Compendious Essay
14. An Explanatory Discourse
15. On Military Strategy
16. Discourse on Mountains
17. Discourse on Forests
18. In the World of Man
19. The Necessity of Training
20. The Grand Reunion
21. Outline of the Essentials
The translation by John S. Major, published in 1993, is a detailed translation and critical study of only Chapters 3, 4 and 5. Major's translation of Chapter 3 (which he translates as "The Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven") includes detailed description of general cosmological notions, as well as astronomical observations and theories for each planet
Student Reading
Primary Text:
Selections from the Huai nan tzu (ca. 139 BCE), in J.S. Major, Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought (SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 62-75.
Background Reading
Charles Le Blanc, "Huai Nan Tzu" (Hong Kong University Press, 1985), pp. 1-8.
“The Universal Order,” in DeBary, Chan and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), Chapter XI.
Extended Reading
Ronan and Needham, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), Chapters 7-11 (pp. 78-215).
Day 3:Alchemy: The Nei p’ien of Ge Hong
Theme: Medicine, belief and alchemy
Medicine, alchemy, botany and the like are modern categories which do not alway correspond very well to the patterns of thought, writing and activity in past times. This holds for both East and West, of course. The treatise Nei p’ien by the 4th-century scholar, Ge Hong (Ko Hung), brings together ideas, theories, processes, and aims that we associate with both chemistry and medicine. It is also rooted in the cosmology of his time. A major interest of Chinese scholars for many centuries was the search for ways to attain immortality. Certain beliefs (especially of daoist origin) led to the idea that physical immortality was naturally possible. The search for understanding of this phenomenon involved many things we class under the rubric of chemistry, alchemy or even medicine. Because of the search for "elixirs of immortality" there were famous cases of failure with poisonings. The Ware translation of the Nei p’ien is the only one widely available, but it is heavily contaminated throughout with Western categories, assumptions and terminology. Reading it with an eye on these sorts of problems can be a useful exercise. The basic ideas, however, give some sense of the medieval Chinese view of this aspect of nature.
Student Reading
Ge Hong (Ko Hung), Nei p’ien, Chap. 4: “Gold and Cinnabar” and Chap. 11: “The Genie's Pharmacopoeia,” in J.R. Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung (Dover, 1981).
Extended Reading
J. Needham and Ho Ping-yü, "Elixir Poisoning in Medieval China," in J. Needham, Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), Chapter 16.
Day 4: Ben Cao (Pen Ts'ao) Traditions
Theme: Natural history and materia medica in China
Two of the most important texts in Chinese medicine are Huang di nei jing, and Ben cao gang mu ("The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine" and "The Great Pharmacopoeia"). These texts are still used as the bases for Chinese Traditional Medicine. The Huang di nei jing is (probably) a multi-authored text in which a dialog between the mythical Yellow Emperor and one of his chief ministers explores many aspects of medicine: the concept of the body and its function, the detection, causes and treatment of illness, and the way remedies act. The Ben cao gang mu is a compendium of medication (in the broad sense) which gives the historical background for the drugs, much botanical information, as well as the indications for the uses of the materials. The literary tradition of such treatises on drugs gives a good idea of thinking about those areas now identified as botany, geology and mineralogy, as well as pharmacology and physiology.
Student Reading
Primary Texts:
Selection on “Substance Therapies” in P.U. Unschuld. Huang Di nei jing su wen : nature, knowledge, imagery in an ancient Chinese medical text, with an appendix, The doctrine of the five periods and six qi in the Huang Di nei jing su wen (University of California Press, 2003), pp. 284-313.
Li Shi zhen: Ben cao gang mu (1596), in P.U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics (University of California Press, 1986), pp. 145-168.
Background Reading
P.U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics (University of California Press, 1986), pp. 11-28.
Extended Reading
“Unification of the Empire, Confucianism, and the Medicine of Systematic Correspondences,” in P.U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (University of California Press, 1985), Chapter 3.
Day 5: East-West Interactions
Theme: Unity and diversity
Contrary to the view of many Americans, China, and Asia in general, has not been isolated from the rest of the world. During several periods in Chinese history government policies were expansionistic and embassies to distant foreign lands were dispatched. Chinese ships ventured widely and trade routes flourished between China and Europe. These interactions were sometimes interrupted for long periods, but there is much evidence to suggest substantial cultural and technical interchange. These suggested readings provide a general idea about such East-West interactions (Needham) and give two specific cases of such contact during the Tang (618-ca 900 CE) (Schafer), and the Ming (1368-1644 CE) (Spence).
Student Reading
“The Glory of T’ang,” in E. H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand; a Study of T’ang Exotics (University of California Press, 1963), Chapter 1.
“Shall and Verbiest: To God Through the Stars,” in J. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (Penguin, 1980), Chapter 1.
Extended Reading
“Conditions of travel of scientific ideas and techniques between China and Europe,” in J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 1 (Cambridge University Press, 1954), Chapter 7.
Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Modern Science in China (Harvard University Press, 2006).
Volker G. Scheid, Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis (Duke University Press, 2002).
Nathan Sivin, “A Cornucopia of Reference Works for the History of Chinese Medicine,” Chinese Science, 9 (1989): 29-52.
Day 6: Science in Contemporary China
Theme: Scientism, Marxism, Genetics and Bombs
Beginning in the late 19th century, reformers in China increasingly looked to Western learning to help China solve both internal and external problems. One aspect of such Western thought was Marxism. Another was Science. The two were somewhat related, since Marxism claimed to be a "scientific" approach to the world. The last century in China has seen a major struggle between traditional views of man, society and nature and some Western views of these things. Reformers in new Republican China initiated a major debate in the early 1920's about the "proper" philosophy for China. Belief in "Science" was a keystone of the reformers position. The victory of "scientism" in this struggle for the hearts and minds of the Chinese was a major factor in Chinese thought in this century. The other major influence was the Sinicised version of Marxism as developed by Mao and his followers. The politics of the Cold War were played out in such sensitive scientific fields such as genetics and atomic physics. The two suggested readings serve to illustrate the interplay of science, politics and ideology in the 20th-century Chinese context.
Student Reading
L. Schneider: Lysenkoism in China: Proceedings of the 1956 Qingdao Genetics Symposium (M.E. Sharpe, 1986), pp. 1-9, 77-89.
J. Huxley, Heredity East and West: Lysenkoism and World Science (Henry Schumann, 1949), pp. 1-34.
J.W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 1988), Chapters 1-4.
Extended Reading
D.W.Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900-1950 (Yale University Press, 1971), Chapter 1.
Possible Topics for Student Research
1. The nature of "proof" in Chinese mathematics
2. History of mechanical calculating aids
3. Chinese cosmology in art, literature, religion
4. Chinese conception of time and timekeeping devices
5. Natural history as art in the East and West
6. Genetics and crop breeding in early China
7. East-West exchange of natural products, plants and animals
8. Historical role of the Nei Ching in Chinese medicine
9. Comparison of the search for elixirs of immortality, East and West
10. Western medicine in China in the 20th C.
11. The role of the physician in Chinese society
12. Physics, cosmology, and Chinese music
13. History of ethanol in China
14. History of navigational theory practice in China
15. Epidemic disease in China and societal responses
16. Medicine, physicians and healing as portrayed in Chinese literature
17. Forensic science in China
18. Cross-cultural comparison of some particular concept about nature
19. Calendrical science in China
20. Books of historical importance in Chinese medicine
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