19世纪英国草药知识的全球化和普遍化——以丹尼尔·汉璧礼的中国草药研究为中心

Globalization and Universalization of Natural Knowledge in the 19^th-century Britain:Daniel Hanbury's Research and Translation of Chinese Materia Medica

进入19世纪,越来越多前所未知的草药随着全球贸易网络跨越文化和语言的界限,进入英国药材学家们的视野,他们日渐希望通过收集、翻译草药名称,建立一个统一的命名系统。本文主要使用丹尼尔·汉璧礼的档案,考察19世纪英国科学家在中国的科研实践,展现他们如何一边命名草药,一边将其纳入到他们所建构的全球性、普遍性的科学体系中去。在研究中国草药时,汉璧礼致力于收集植物的汉字名、拼音转写、当地俗名、西文名,乃至林奈名等,进行对应、整合和翻译。他的标本收集、翻译定名工作呈现出19世纪大英帝国及其科学界对普遍性和全球性的追求,是一种对自然的排序活动。在这一过程中,大量的异国草药被识别并陈列在展柜中,使得人们得以系统地看待全世界的自然和事物。

In the 19th century,as a growing amount of medicinal materials were traded along the expanding network of global trade,the British knowledge of herbal medicine from abroad expanded accordingly.In the face of many unknown materia medica crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries,their primary attention was laid on establishing a universal system of botanical nomenclatures by collecting and translating the names.Using Daniel Hanbury's letters,notebooks and publications,this study sheds light on the important aspect of the research practice of British pharmaceutical scientists in the 19th century,where they were much concerned with naming and identifying each botanical item.While carrying out research of Chinese materia medica,Hanbury was committed to collecting the local names of various items in Chinese characters as well as Romanized transcriptions and western names,which were constantly corresponded,compared with material specimen and translated into Linnean names.His scientific activity that paid considerable attention to naming,translating,and classifying epitomizes how universality and globality were pursued as an ideal of knowledge for the 19 th-century British Empire and its scientists.In this process,a confusing array of worldly nature and exotic materials were identified and displayed in the scientific order,by which people could systematically understand the nature and commodify the natural products around the world.