A Study on Benjamin Hobson’s Contribution to the Translation of Western Medicine in Modern China

Abstract

Benjamin Hobson is a British medical missionary who came to China in the Qing Dynasty. Living in China for nearly twenty years, Hobson had quite a few translation works published, and he was not only the first one who systematically translated various kinds of medicine theories into Chinese but also the pioneer of creating medical terms in Chinese. This paper first attempts to make a thorough inquiry into Hobson’s medical translation practice and his views on translation, and then points out that Hobson’s major contributions to the translation of western medicine in modern China are that his medical translation promoted the popularization of western medicine in China, that the publication of Treatise on Physiology set a milestone of translating medicine works for modern China to learn from the West, and that his compilation of A Medical Vocabulary in English and Chinese laid the foundation for the Chinese translation of modern medicine terminology.