中国近代大众医学读物的传播与接受--以《验方新编》为例

Spread and Acceptance of Popular Medical Readings in Modern China:A Case Study of New Compilation of Empirical Formulas

作为民间医药的重要组成部分,验方因在满足大众医疗需求方面的优势而广行于世。重点辑录此类知识的《验方新编》一书,内容丰富,便于非专业人士查阅和应用。它在1846年出版后的近二十年里并不为人熟知,却在19世纪后期迅速扩散开来,传播到了全国大部分省份以及俄国、日本、新加坡、美国、加拿大等国家。进入20世纪之后,该书的普及程度进一步提高,并逐渐成为易得易懂易用类医药知识的一种象征和代指他人经验的一种常用语,乃至"中医"的代名词。这种嬗变实际是社会需求、名人效应、出版印刷技术革新、商业营销和民间劝善文化共同推动的结果。一本传统的民间验方书在趋新求变的背景下大放异彩,启示我们在阐释近代中西医的关系及其演变的问题时,应注重考察中西医知识在不同地域和群体的医疗实践中的实际应用和接受状况。

Empirical formulas,widely spread among the people because of its comparative advantage in meeting the general public’s medical demand,are an important component of folk medicine.As a typical work of folk empirical formula books,New Compilation of Empirical Formulas was rich in content,easy to read and apply for nonprofessional people,but it wasn’t well-known for more than twenty years because of the political situation.It was popularized quickly during the late 19 th century,spreading from Guangzhou to most provinces of China,and then to Russia,Japan,Singapore,America and Canada.Its popularization further improved after entering the 20 th century and it gradually became a symbol of medicine knowledge which was easy to get,learn and apply,and a daily expression referred to the experience of others.It even became a synonym of traditional Chinese medicine.In fact,this evolution was the result of the joint promotion of several forces,such as social needs,celebrity effect,technical innovation in publishing and printing,commercial marketing and folk culture of persuading others to be good.A traditional empirical formula book dazzled with brilliancy in the context of reformation,teaches us that we should interpret the relationship between traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine more comprehensively from the reading practice and medical practice of the general public.