A biographical study of Bernard Rhodes S. J. (1646-1715), physician, surgeon and insignis pharmacopeus: deciphering medical itineraries in Qing China

Abstract

The itinerary of Bernard Rhodes S. J. (1646-1715), temporal coadjutor of the Society of Jesus and missionary in China, is of remarkable complexity. He was already a doctor before he was recruited by the Jesuit order and sent on various missions. During the nine years before his arrival in China, his route between Europe and Asia was largely determined by rivalries between European powers. When he eventually arrived in Beijing in 1699 and entered the service of the Kangxi Emperor, he became attached to the Imperial House, and this seems to have decisively determined the course of his itineraries in the Middle Kingdom henceforth. Following his movements in the capital and in the emperor's cortege during imperial tours gives us unique insights into the mobility of this Jesuit medical practitioner. In the service of the Manchu rule, he provided therapies-unknown to Chinese palace physicians and their medical traditions-to privileged patients belonging to the core imperial networks. In the medical pluralistic setting as it existed at the court and was instrumentalized by the Manchu ruler for ideological purposes, Rhodes was in competition not only with experts of the Imperial Academy of Medicine, but also with Mongolian doctor and Lama therapists. His career in the Qing empire illustrates that the presence in Beijing of doctors trained in Europe was not enough to ensure the transmission of the specific knowledge they held. Medical matters reveal to be an important case study in which Western language sources, combined with those in Chinese and especially in Manchu, provide us with a deeper understanding of courtly live and the function of medicine in consolidating Manchu rule during the Kangxi reign. Thus, the study of the biography of Rhodes, one of the marginal actors in the emperor's service, and the tracing of his itineraries is a complementary contribution to New Qing History, with its emphasis on exploring non-Chinese voices.