바이러스와 역사 - 영미권 중국 의학사의 유행병 연구 -

Abstract

Historians of Chinese medicine have presented different views on the ontology of disease. For those who are primarily concerned with the specificities of microorganisms, such as Yersinia pestis, biology is the foundation of a historical inquiry. Contemporary nosology has defined evidence of the bubonic plague’s manifestation in nineteenth-century China; demographic changes, enhanced mobility, and commercial development in southwestern China elucidates locally specific circumstances of the outbreak. Indeed, the identity of Yersinia pestis places the Chinese experience of the bubonic plague parallel with the Roman’s experience of the Justinian plague and the Europeans’ of the Black Death.<BR> However, unlike those who prioritize biological commonality, one group of disease historians have questioned the ahistorical agency of bacteria and viruses. They intend to investigate a socio-culturally situated understanding of communicative illnesses in China, including the evolution of Chinese etiology and the Chinese perception of disease transmission. These scholars have examined indigenous concepts and therapeutic rationales, such as shanghan (cold-damage), wenbing (warm disease), chuanran (contagion and infection), and the miscellaneous qi to articulate the Chinese experience of epidemics.<BR> Furthermore, historians of medicine have highlighted the central role epidemics have played in shaping modern Asia, scrutinizing experiences of pandemics through the lens of multi-layered interdependencies across Asia. Asia’s dynamism posits pandemics’ experiences were at the center of Asia’s transition to modernity, provincializing the existing Eurocentric history of epidemics. After the onset of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the centuries-long “sick man of Asia” is likely to be replaced by the “sick man of North America.” However, despite unbound expectations about radical departures, scholars are questioning whether the dominant sense of crisis around the current pandemic will lead to any crucial remedies for pre-existing inequalities, systemic racism, and environmental emergencies.