Chinese Biographies of Experts in Medicine: What Uses Can We Make of Them?

Abstract

International audienceAfter a long eclipse in the European academic world that favored other forms of narrative and other sources, biographies have resurfaced in historical research over the last three decades. Renewed interest in biographies for research inthe humanities in general has, in turn, launched a reevaluation among historians, sociologists, and demographists of biography and the biographical method. Benefiting from this reflection that mainly focuses on the European biographicaltradition, this paper analyzes biographical enterprise within the Chinese tradition by relying on a broad collection of official biographies of people who were locally renowned for their skills in medicine during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Byusing an approach that combines a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a series of 422 biographies briefly described in this paper, it first sheds light on the features and function of these narratives. Then, it demonstrates how, in spite of their limitations,biases, and heterogeneity, these biographies of medical experts can provide crucial material for reconstructing the medical landscape at a specific time and place without limiting it to the handful of men whose writings have survived