Epistemic Genres as a Conceptual Tool in the History of Chinese Medicine

Abstract

This article summarizes the collaboration between two historians of medicine on Sino-European medical exchanges. Gianna Pomata researches the history of medicine in early modern Europe and Marta Hanson researches the history of medicine in early modern China. The following covers the concept of epistemic genres that Pomata first developed out of her research on the history of the genres historia, observationes, recipes, medical cases, and the commentary in Europe. She connected these genres variously to empiricism, erudition, scientific observation, norm-making, and recording practice. The paper then evaluates how Pomata and Hanson used epistemic genres as a method for doing cross-cultural research on 17th–18th-century Sino-European medical exchanges. Pomata then wrote a comparative history of the medical case in Europe and China. The article concludes with how Hanson applied the distinction of epistemic genres to analyze the history of Chinese medicine from a new perspective.

Publishing and Medicine: A Potentially Integrated Field?

“…Hanson, in her recent article “Epistemic genres as a conceptual tool in the history of Chinese medicine,” 28 also confirms the value of epistemic medical genres in studies of Chinese medical history, through the analysis of Pomata’s research and her collaboration with Pomata on research about medical exchanges between China and Europe. Using the medical case as an epistemic genre is a powerful means to re-periodize the long history of medical cases both in China and Europe.…”

Grasping Heaven and Earth (Qian Kun Zai Wo): The Body-as-Technology in Classical Chinese Medicine

“…By the mid-13th century, these “pointing-finger” and not “whole-hand” metaphors became useful terms to more finely differentiate types of medical genres probably because they also resonated with how people were actually using their fingers in hand mnemonics at that time. 23…”