Chinese forensic medicine has a long and brilliant history,and the forensic knowledge in ancient China represents the world’s highest medicolegal level at the time.Among all extant essays and works on China’s early ...Chinese forensic medicine has a long and brilliant history,and the forensic knowledge in ancient China represents the world’s highest medicolegal level at the time.Among all extant essays and works on China’s early medical jurisprudence,Xiyuan Jilu(Records for Vindication)written by Song Ci in 1247 CE,during the Southern Song dynasty,is the oldest text on legal medicine in the world.Subsequently,this work went through successive editions and expansions.The book was not simply a manual providing instruction on conducting inquests;it also established standards for all judicial practices in ancient China.From the beginning of the 18th century,the earliest existing Yuan edition and subsequent editions of this book were translated.They contributed to the broad dissemination of ancient Chinese forensic culture in the West.By discussing the diffusion of Xiyuan Jilu and its corresponding studies in the Western world,this paper intends to expound on the cultural transmission of early Chinese forensic medicine,and reveal its values and impacts on the history and development of legal medicine worldwide to provide an illustrative example of Sino-Western medical and cultural exchange.展开更多
This paper analyzes the influence of forensic medicine on therapeutic medicine through a case study of Qian Xiuchang and Hu Tingguang, two Chinese doctors who specialized in treating traumatic injuries. During the ear...This paper analyzes the influence of forensic medicine on therapeutic medicine through a case study of Qian Xiuchang and Hu Tingguang, two Chinese doctors who specialized in treating traumatic injuries. During the early nineteenth century, both men compiled medical treatises that sought to improve on a scholarly model of ＂rectifying bones＂ articulated in 1742 by the Imperially-Compiled Golden Mirror of the Medical Lineage. Both texts also incorporated information from forensic medicine, including official inquest diagrams and checklists promulgated by the Qing government. I show that they drew on these forensic materials to help address two interlinked medical issues： understanding the effects of injury on different parts of the body, and clarifying the location and form of the body＇s bones. Overall, I suggest that the exchange of ideas between the realm of therapeutic medicine and forensic medicine was an important epistemological strategy that doctors and officials alike employed to improve their knowledge of the material body.展开更多
文摘Chinese forensic medicine has a long and brilliant history,and the forensic knowledge in ancient China represents the world’s highest medicolegal level at the time.Among all extant essays and works on China’s early medical jurisprudence,Xiyuan Jilu(Records for Vindication)written by Song Ci in 1247 CE,during the Southern Song dynasty,is the oldest text on legal medicine in the world.Subsequently,this work went through successive editions and expansions.The book was not simply a manual providing instruction on conducting inquests;it also established standards for all judicial practices in ancient China.From the beginning of the 18th century,the earliest existing Yuan edition and subsequent editions of this book were translated.They contributed to the broad dissemination of ancient Chinese forensic culture in the West.By discussing the diffusion of Xiyuan Jilu and its corresponding studies in the Western world,this paper intends to expound on the cultural transmission of early Chinese forensic medicine,and reveal its values and impacts on the history and development of legal medicine worldwide to provide an illustrative example of Sino-Western medical and cultural exchange.
文摘This paper analyzes the influence of forensic medicine on therapeutic medicine through a case study of Qian Xiuchang and Hu Tingguang, two Chinese doctors who specialized in treating traumatic injuries. During the early nineteenth century, both men compiled medical treatises that sought to improve on a scholarly model of ＂rectifying bones＂ articulated in 1742 by the Imperially-Compiled Golden Mirror of the Medical Lineage. Both texts also incorporated information from forensic medicine, including official inquest diagrams and checklists promulgated by the Qing government. I show that they drew on these forensic materials to help address two interlinked medical issues： understanding the effects of injury on different parts of the body, and clarifying the location and form of the body＇s bones. Overall, I suggest that the exchange of ideas between the realm of therapeutic medicine and forensic medicine was an important epistemological strategy that doctors and officials alike employed to improve their knowledge of the material body.
