SKU: 71875311788

Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626 to 2006

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Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626 to 2006In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with

In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with which it merged over time to form the “current of Menghe learning” (Menghe xuepai). 

This current and its offshoots produced some of the most influential physicians in the Chinese medical tradition during the 19th and 20th centuries. Menghe physicians, their disciples and students treated emperors, imperial mandarins, Nationalist Party generals, leading figures in the Communist Party, affluent businessmen, and influential artists.

In late imperial China, Menghe medicine was a self-conscious attempt to unite diverse strands of medical learning into one integrated tradition centered on ancient principles of practice. In Republican Shanghai, Menghe physicians and their students were at the forefront of medical modernization, establishing schools, professional associations, and journals that became models for others to follow. During the 1950s and 1960s, the heirs of Menghe medicine were key players in creating the institutional framework for contemporary Chinese medicine. Their students are now practicing all over the world, shaping Chinese medicine in Los Angeles, New York, Oxford, Mallorca, and Berlin.

The history of the Menghe current is relevant to anyone interested in the development of Chinese medicine in late imperial and modern China. This book traces Chinese medical history along the currents created by generations of physicians linked to each other by a shared heritage of learning, by descent and kinship, by sentiments of native place as well as nationalist fervor, by personal rivalries and economic competition, by the struggle for the survival of tradition and glorious visions of a new global medicine.

On the level of both theory and practice, this history marks a departure from the focus on texts and ideas that has dominated Western engagement with Chinese medicine to date. Its goal is to locate medicine within the concrete lives of physicians and their patients, restoring an agency to their actions that easily gets lost in our search for the forces or structures that shape historical process. To this end, the author interweaves social history and medical case studies, ethnography and biography to narrate a story of Chinese medicine that is very different from any that has been told before.

Read an excerpt (PDF)

Contents

Part 1 Late Imperial China

  • Economy and Society in Late Imperial China: Jiangnan, Wujin, and Menghe 
  • The Scholarly Medical Tradition in Late Imperial China: Origins, Problems, and New Departures 
  • The Origins of Menghe Medicine 
  • The Flourishing of Menghe Medicine 
  • Medical Lineages and Master Disciple Networks: The Eastward Spread of Menghe Medicine 
  • Fei Boxiong and the Menghe Medical Style

Part 2 Republican China

  • Chinese Medicine in Shanghai: Native Place and the 
  • The Modernization of Chinese Medicine in Republican China: From Medical Reform to Medical Revolution 
  • The Birth of the Menghe Current: Ding Ganren and the Transformation of Chinese Medicine in Republican Shanghai 
  • From Shanghai to New York: Ding Family Medicine after Ding Ganren 
  • The Development of Ding Family Medicine: Clinical Efficacy and Personal Identity

Part 3 Contemporary China

  • Chinese Medicine in Maoist and Post-Maoist China: The Institutionalization of Tradition and Its Discontents 
  • Inheriting and Developing Tradition: Three Exemplary Biographies 
  • Wujin Medicine Remembered: Tradition and the Labor of Social Memory

Reviews

"A superb study that speaks both to medical historians and anthropologists, and to the increasingly globalized communities of contemporary practitioners of Chinese medicine. Scheid’s work is unique in integrating a subtle understanding of historical multiplicity with insights based on his own clinical experience."
—Charlotte Furth, Professor of Chinese History, University of Southern California

"At the beginning of this astonishing book, Volker Scheid raises the most fundamental, most daunting questions in medical history: First, what is a medical tradition? What makes us see stable structures in a world where the only constant rule is change? What maintains them in a society where medicine was not an organized profession? What gives birth to such a tradition? How does it die? . . . Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine grapples on every page with these practically unexamined questions, and develops as convincing a set of answers as we are likely to have for a long time."
—From the Foreword by Nathan Sivin, Professor of Chinese Culture and the History of Science, University of Pennsylvania

"Combines sophisticated arguments about social processes and processes of remembering with the specific histories of individual physicians and their colleagues, patients, aspirations, and clinical styles. . . . Historians, anthropologists, practitioners and patients will all find gems that please them in this remarkable new contribution to the field."
—Marta Hanson, Assistant Professor, Department of History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

"This book fills an important gap. There are few works available on the history of Chinese medicine, the development of the Chinese medical tradition and the transmission of medical knowledge in China. It is an essential point of reference for any practitioner of Chinese medicine who wants to reach beyond the narrow circle of knowledge acquired in the course of gaining a professional qualification, and who wants at least to try to connect with his or her ‘ancestors.’ It is also relevant because it reveals the fragility of the Chinese medical tradition, something we might not have suspected or thought about. It is as fragile as memory itself. And thus we have the responsibility of keeping it alive."
—Olga Fedina, European Journal of Oriental Medicine

"Those interested in the history of the multifaceted tradition of Chinese medicine will find this an intriguing look behind the veil of current orthodoxy to a practice where, for example, self-cultivation could form the basis for clinical efficacy. An inspiring book."
—Steve Clavey, author, Fluid Physiology and Pathology in Traditional Chinese Medicine

"As a student of Qin Bowei, and therefore part of the Menghe tradition myself, I wholeheartedly recommend this text as an introduction to the depth of the Chinese medical tradition."
—Wu Boping, Professor, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences

"Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine is essential reading for anyone seeking a nuanced understanding of Chinese medicine and the social dynamics that have shaped it over time."
—Yi-Li Wu, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

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Masked Reviewer
Grantham, US
★★★★★ 5
Gets the Creative Juices Flowing
Format: Paperback
I picked up this book after hearing Kim Addonizio give a reading at my college when I was an undergraduate. Creative Writing and poetry were my areas of emphasis and although we used a different textbook in my poetry class, I came to love this one. It won't give you the formal training in meter and poetic forms that another textbook might, but I love the examples and the prompts for inspiration. It's my favorite book to turn to when I feel the creative well is running dry. It's warm and funny and you feel a real presence from the authors as if you have teachers with you. I haven't met Dorianne Laux, but I have chatted with Kim Addonizio twice after readings and she was lovely. (Her readings are fantastic, by the way, and I highly recommend them!) If you are familiar with Kim Addonizio'ss poems then you shouldn't be surprised to find a section on erotic poetry in this book. Erotic poems have a long tradition in poetry and they are not "porn" as one reviewer suggested. Sexuality and sensuality are part of life and the artistic expression of such is a special skill set. I think it's fantastic that this book doesn't sensor that. I love the examples chosen for this book--many beautiful, contemporary poems that utilize vivid and unexpected imagery. I find them inspiring. They make me want to write and they make me want to be a better writer. I do believe that if you are a beginner or if you are considering this book as a textbook for a class you should consider it as a supplement to a book that goes into a little more depth in certain areas, such as Writing Poems (see if you can get an older edition, if you are lucky, as I see this book has become quite expensive). But this is a fantastic little book and I love having both a hard copy to underline and put notes in and a Kindle copy to keep with me on my phone so I can have a little inspiration with me for easy access. No matter where you are in your journey as a poet, I believe this is a wonderful book to have in your library.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2021
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Kasey P.
West Palm Beach, US
★★★★★ 5
Received brand new book in perfect condition for less than ten dollars
Format: Paperback
Received brand new book in perfect condition for less than ten dollars. I needed this exact book for a creative writing course and I enjoy the exercises within the different sections. They are very thought provoking and creativity stimulating and would be excellent inspiration for any poetic or even descriptive writer. Also, I find the writing style of the author amazingly easy to read. It is simple and straightforward, easy to follow and not boring as some other texts are. The tone is inspirational honestly, always providing tips and writing encouragement. This is a nice positive twist and delightful different perspective for aspiring writers and though it sounds to be directed at amateurs, I think any author who may experience writer's block at times could find this useful and full of insight to try out fresh perspectives to pen about topics that may be applied to a broad range of subjects. Quality informative and yet uplifting text regarding poetic writing!
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Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2017
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Marianne
Battle Creek, US
★★★★★ 5
Practical, Useful, Down to Earth, Inspiring!
Format: Paperback
I love this book. After reading the first chapter early one morning I went outside to feed and water my cats and came in and wrote a poem about flowing water, tangled morning glories and memories of my mother. It's one of the most inspiring, practical and encouraging books about writing poetry that I've ever read, and trust me, I've read them all. It has technical information and poems to illustrate each chapter, which is very helpful. The suggestions at the end of each chapter are down to earth and do-able, unlike some books that are just too high-minded for the average person. If you love to write poems and just need some inspiration and a little advice and encouragement, then definitely buy this book. It's worth its weight in gold!
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Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2005
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Cindy Lou Lpn
Lexington, US
★★★★★ 4
Took me by surprise 😮
Format: Paperback
The revised part of my review: I do agree with a reviewer; Thomas "Should Have Been Better" Especially his paragraph here: [Unless (like the authors) you think that Sharon Olds' "passing blood and feces and water" and her "stool black with iron pills" (page 234) are high points in the world of modern poetry, you may resist their suggestion to "read all five of her books, for pleasure first, of course, but secondly to examine how she goes about her difficult task" (page 47).] As I have read more, I am reevaluating my own opinions of this book. I still feel it has been helpful, although much of it I would have preferred to have never read! Poor choice of examples to a student indeed! This, is my original review: I thought it was going to be a bunch of lame assignments, well there definitely are some assignments so to speak. I haven't even made it through half of the 1st chapter and I've written 6 or 7 new reflections (which some call poetry)! It digs deep, at least it did for me...pretty personal when you open yourself up to it. Good challenge and good lessons to glean from and grow as a writer. I still plan on keeping this around, probably with a few pages removed.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2023
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Ann Onomymous
Omaha, US
★★★★★ 5
Arrived in good condition
Format: Paperback
Arrived in good condition
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Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2026

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