Vivienne Lo - Medieval Chinese Medicine: The Dunhuang Medical Manuscripts (Needham Research Institute)

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Medieval Chinese Medicine

In recent decades various versions of Chinese medicine have begun to be widely practised in Western countries, and the academic study of the subject is now well established. However, there are still few scholarly monographs that describe the history of Chinese medicine and there are none at all on the medieval period. The collection presented here is an example of the kind of international collaboration of research teams, centres and individuals that is required to begin to study the source materials adequately.

The primary sources for this research come from a collection of medieval manuscripts discovered in 1900 in a walled-up room in the Buddhist caveshrines of Dunhuang, Gansu Province, west China. Dunhuang was fomerly an important Silk Road town, and formed the base of one of the first garrisons to be established during the Han period to secure the safe passage of soldiers, officials and traders between east and west. While the majority of the manuscripts stored in the cave are copies of Buddhist scriptural texts, there are also thousands of non-Buddhist texts, both religious and secular. The presence among these of some one hundred medical texts suggests that the Dunhuang prfectural school was a centre for copying and transmitting medical writings. In the collection we find the earliest handwritten copies of well-known classical medical treatises, together with hitherto unknown medical works, including illustrations and charts, texts related to religious and popular healing traditions and, excitingly, extensive portions of texts previously known only through brief quotations in later works.

This is the first book to discuss this fascinating material in a Western language in the century since the Dunhuang library was discovered, and it is likely to remain the only book of its kind in English for a considerable time.

Vivienne Lo reseaeches and lectures on the early and medieval history of Asian medicine at the Welcome Trust Center for the History of Medicine, University College London.

Christopher Cullen is Director of the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge.

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Needham Research Institute series

Series Editor: Christopher Cullen

Joseph Needhams Science and Civilisation series began publication in the 1950s. At first it was seen as a piece of brilliant but isolated pioneering. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is clear that Needhams work has succeeded in creating a vibrant new intellectual field in the West. The books in this series cover topics relating broadly to the practice of science, technology and medicine in East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The emphasis is on traditional forms of knowledge and practice, but without excluding modern studies which connect their topics with their historical and cultural context.

Celestial Lancets
A history and rationale of acupuncture and moxa
Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham
With a new introduction by Vivienne Lo

A Chinese Physician
Wang Ji and the Stone Mountain medical case histories
Joanna Grant

Chinese Mathematical Astrology
Reaching out to the stars
Ho Peng Yoke

Medieval Chinese Medicine
The Dunhuang medical manuscripts
Edited by Vivienne Lo and Christopher Cullen

Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 19451963
Medicine of revolution
Kim Taylor

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The Dunhuang medical manuscripts

Edited by Vivienne Lo and Christopher Cullen

LONDON AND NEW YORK

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First published 2005
by RoutledgeCurzon
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY10016

RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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2005 Vivienne Lo and Christopher Cullen, selection and editorial matter; the contributors, their chapters

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN 0-203-48224-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-69397-3 (OEB Format)

ISBN 0-415-34295-3 (Print Edition)

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