Abstract
This article investigates how “Jesuit medicine” and “Jesuit medical practices” under the Kangxi Emperor’s (r. 1662-1722) patronage of Western Learning functioned within a wider context of multi-ethnic medical practices. Missionaries at the court in general, and those specialized in medicine in particular, became medical interlocutors of European medicine to China and of Chinese medicine to Europe. Practicing medicine in the service of the Kangxi Emperor provided them with an opportunity for personal and even intimate access to the Emperor and his environment. Manchu and Chinese Medical Palace Memorials, the main type of primary sources used for this study, bear witness to the transmission of Jesuit medicine and practice to the Kangxi court. By highlighting the private and confidential nature of these documents and the factional court politics they reflect, it is shown how medicine became one of the fields of Western Learning that was systematically patronized by the Emperor. In addition, this article identifies a number of important actors belonging to a wide network of imperial power and privilege. Power and privilege are especially manifest in cases of the health problems of important officials, officers, and members of the imperial family when the Kangxi Emperor took a personal interest in their illnesses, sometimes even distributing Jesuit medical drugs to them.
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