Historical Epistemology and the Making of Modern Chinese Medicine

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 fertilisation regimens, and from the modernisation of Chinese anatomy and forensic science to the evolving perceptions of the clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine. The book uses a powerful theoretical-methodological approach, historical epistemology, to challenge the status of such basic scientific constructs as knowledge, reason, argument, objectivity, evidence, fact and truth. In studying the globalizing role of medical objects, the contested ideas of medical authority and legitimacy, and the transformations of metaphysical and ontological knowledge, its contributors illuminate how the historical study of Chinese medicine and its practices of knowledge-making in the modern period must be both philosophically and transnationally informed.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.