明清生育隐喻下的女性病患

Women Patients under the Metaphor of Fertility in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

在现有针对中国古代妇女医疗史的研究中,生育向来是一个重要的议题。然而,受到材料的限制,人们虽然可以探索妇科医学和医者生育认知观历时性的变化,却不得不将女性病患作为客体,这导致从病患视角出发的研究十分有限。本文通过重新审视医学文本中对于女性病患的治疗建议,结合明清时期相关的医疗叙述发现“胎产优先论”的认知观对于女性病患及其家属的医疗决策和行为模式产生了实质性的影响。在生育的隐喻作用下,一些疾病被自然而然地搁置和忽视了。与此同时,明清时期未被医疗审视的生育活动与这种隐喻共同作用,给女性病患获得有效的医疗救治造成了障碍。

Fertility has always been an important topic in the existing research on the medical history of ancient Chinese women.However,being restricted by historical materials,although scholars can explore the diachronic changes of gynecology as well as physicians'epistemology on fertility,they have to treat female patients as objects,which means there is limited research from the patient's perspective.By reexamining the treatment recommendations for female patients in the medical records and combined with the relevant medical narrative in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,this article demonstrates how the theory of reproductive priority substantially affects female patients and their families'decision-making as well as behavior patterns.Under the influence of the metaphor of fertility,some diseases are naturally shelved and ignored.At the same time,many reproductive activities in the Ming and Qing Dynasties lacked the possibility of being examined by medicine,and it works with the metaphor.This created obstacles for them to gain effective medical treatment.