Popular Healing in Printed Medical Books

Abstract

In 1759, Zhao Xuemin 趙學敏, a scholar and physician from Qiantang County (present-day Hangzhou), compiled his Chuanya 串雅. Based on certain editions of this work, modern scholars have assumed that this text is composed of recipes collected from itinerant healers, and that it was its author’s intention to transmit folk healing practices through the printed word. The original manuscript that Zhao Xuemin compiled probably never appeared in print, however, whereas the extant editions of this text found numerous new editions and re-printings. Focusing on several manuscripts and printed editions of the Chuanya which emerged between the late Qing and Republican period, this article traces the processes through which various different agents created and recreated the Chuanya. In contrast to past studies where the connection between the Chuanya and popular healing is taken for granted, I argue that any conclusion should primarily take into account the various editions of this work. By the case study of this text, I hope to clarify a broader dimension around the authorship of printed medical books in late imperial China and challenge the assumption that we can understand them outside the context of their edition and publication.