走向公众:清末民初的国人译编书籍与西药知识的传播

Towards the Public:Books Translated and Complied by Chinese People and the Dissemination of Western Pharmaceutical Knowledge in the Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China

清末民初,国人自行编译的西药书籍开始涌现,兼具学理性、实用性与市场价值。以丁福保、汪惕予为代表的作者,将日本的西药书籍编译为中文,并与期刊、医学速成班及西医各科书籍配合,向公众传播新颖、系统而简明的知识。这些书籍为近代中医接触西医疗法提供了指引,为普通人应对疾病提供了用药指南,也为一些读者“自学成医”提供了捷径。这一案例反映了近代西学知识如何被商业化、社会化,影响观念与生活。国人通过阅读来自学医药知识的既有风尚,为这类西药书籍的流行提供了土壤,却也开始引起一些医生的批评。可见西方医药知识在华传播过程中,“专业化”路径与“公众化”路径存在一定的紧张关系。

In the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China,books translated and complied by Chinese people on Western pharmacy emerged,which were theoretical,practical as well as marketable.Authors such as Ding Fubao and Wang Tiyu translated Japanese books into Chinese,along with journals,short-term medical training programs and books on various subjects of Western medicine,disseminated new,systematic and concise knowledge to the public.These books provided guidance for traditional Chinese medicine practitioners to learn about Western remedies,instructions for ordinary people to use medication to deal with diseases,and shortcuts for some readers to“becoming a doctor through self-study”.This case reflected how Western knowledge was commercialized and socialized in modern China,and affected people's ideas and daily lives.The old custom of learning medical knowledge by reading provided a fertile ground for the popularity of such books,but it also began to arouse criticism from some physicians.It showed a tension between the“specialized”path and the“publicized”path in the process of disseminating Western pharmaceutical knowledge in China.