Description
Book SynopsisIf Chinese medicine is "traditional," why has it not disappeared with the rest of traditional Chinese society? What is the secret to Chinese medicine's remarkable adaptability that has allowed it to prosper for more than 2000 years? This title deals with these questions.
Trade Review“Volker Scheid reveals the dynamic context of Chinese medicine and its continuous process of encounter, interpretation, negotiation, and synthesis. This study’s depth of detail and breathtaking interdisciplinary scope provide a multidimensional understanding of Chinese medicine and the forces that nourish, constrain, and transform it. Any serious scholar or practitioner will want to read and reread this groundbreaking volume.”—Ted J. Kaptchuk, author of
The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine“Volker Scheid’s book is a seriously original work. One of its great strengths is Scheid’s refusal to see Chinese medicine as either unitary or centred. He insists on its plurality, with incursions of Western biomedicine as just more elements within an already multiple field of medical practices. The other great strength is Scheid’s refusal to see medicine as static. He brings to the fore the creative interplay between Chinese and Western traditions, the dynamism that can emerge in the intersection of radically disparate techniques, remedies, and conceptual schemes. Along the way, Scheid develops a fascinating epistemology and ontology of agency, human and nonhuman, that makes sense of the plurality and syntheses that he confronts us with. This is a path-breaking book—one that could be a model for future work in the history of medicine and in cultural studies at large.”—Andrew Pickering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
Timeline on Chinese History
Geographical Map of China
Introduction
Part I: Chinese Medicine and the Problem of Plurality
1. Orientations
2. Plurality and Synthesis: Toward a Multisited Ethnography of Chinese Medicine
Part II: Contemporary Chinese Medicine: Six Perspectives
3. Hegemonic Pluralism: Chinese Medicine in a Socialist State
4. Dilemmas and Tactical Agency: Patients and the Transformation of Chinese Medicine
5. Shaping Chinese Medicine: Integration, Innovation, Synthesis
6. Students, Disciples, and the Art of Social Networking: Becoming a Physician of Chinese Medicine
7.
Bianzheng lunzhi: The Emergent Pivot of Contemporary Chinese Medicine
8. Creating Knowledge: The Origins of Plurality
Part III: Anthropological Interventions
9. The Future of Chinese Medicine
Appendix. Four Attempts at Systematizing Pattern Differentiation and Treatment Determination
Notes
Bibliography of Premodern Chinese Medical Texts
Bibliography of Modern Chinese and Western Sources
Index
