science and medicine, asia and europe (revisión de libro)

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Science and MedicineAsia and Europe

Rob erta Bivins, Acupuncture Expertise and

Cross-Cultural Medicine. (Houndmills , UK:Palgrave, 2000 ). Pp. 277. s HB .

David Wright , Translating Science: The Transmission of

Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China 1840-1900.

(Leiden: BrilI , 2000). Pp. 558 HB. US 100.00 HB.

y FamTi Fan

n 1677, Sir Willi am Temple , dip lomat and author, suffered a severe

gout attack. Having tried European medicine to no avail, he finally

turned to an exotic healing technique, moxibustion or 'moxa', that

the Du tch had learned from the natives in the East Indies. It worked, and

Temple, delighted by the result, published a well-received essay on the

technique that would go through several editions.

In 1901, Xu Jianyin experimented with smokeless gunpowder in his

laboratory at an arsenal in central China. He had studied chemistry withhis father, Xu Shou, whose research into Western science impressed his

Western colleagues in China , and had travelled widely in Europe. Chem-

istry and its military applications seemed to be what China badly needed

in order to resist Western imperialism, and Xu Jianyin was recruited by a

reform-minded governor to improve gunpowder. Something went terribly

wrong one day. The whole establishment was blown up. Xu Jianyin 's

body, blasted into pieces, was nowhere to be found, a nd his boot lay 100

metres away from the destroyed laboratory.

The transmission of science and medicine across cultures, which

inevitably involved translation and interpretation, raises interesting ques-tions about the intersecting realms of knowledge, power, politics, and

cultural traditions. The story of the introduct ion of Western med icine into

China, for example, cannot be properly understood in separation from

9 AAHPSSS, 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishing Limited.



SURV YR VI W

the dynamics of the decline and reinvention of Chinese medicine over the

past 150 years. It is a story of exchange, domination, resistance, appro-

priation, a nd the invention of tradi tion- -a fascinating drama intertwined

with broad historical forces, such as imperialism and nationalism. Both

Western and Chinese medicine were being redefined in the process.

Given the promise of this fertile ground of research, it's not surprising

that scholars are tuming their attention to the problem of science and

medicine in cross-cultural translation. In the field with which I am most

familiar--science and medicine in Qing and modern Ch in a- -I can cou nt

about ten dissertations on the topic that were completed within the pastfew years and several more in progress. Although most of this wave of

scholarship is not yet in book form, it indicates that a major transformation

in the formerly neglected field is taking place. Drawing upon anthropol-

ogy, postcolonial studies, new cultural history, and previously unexplored

archival material, this new scholarship challenges conventional histo r-

ical categories and examines scientific encounters in relation to broad

historical themes. Its focus shifts from the more traditional subjects,

such as mathematics and astronomy, to medicine, biology, and natural

history.

The two books under review share key features with the body of

literature I've just described, b ut they also differ significantly from it a nd

from each other. Bivins' book centres on the reception of acupuncture in

Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It's primarily a study

of the British medical elite and their attitude towards a particular medical

technique that had been severed from its origins. For the most part,

cross-cultural translation of medicine is peripheral to the mainline of its

narrative. Wright's book does directly address the issue of translating

science (in this case, translat ing chemistry into Ch ina), bu t it is singularly

uninterested in the issues that other scholars find important (e.g. imperi-alism) and its approach is relatively traditional. I n their own ways, never-

theless, the two books present many interesting ideas and observations.

Bivins's book begins with a perceptive analysis of the medical encounters

of the two British delegations to China in the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries. Some members of the delegations fell ill on several

occasions, and Chinese doctors were engaged to examine them. Inspir ed

by Edward Said's insights on orientalism, Bivins carefully analyses the

records of the medical encounters and discusses how class, expertise,

and cultural prejudice might have shaped the European gaze at Chinese

medicine. Although it hardly mentions acupuncture, this long first chaptermore directly addresses problems in cross-cultural medicine than does

the rest of the book. In Chapter 2, the book somewhat awkwardly moves

back in time to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and

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focuses on a few texts that first introduced acupuncture into Europe.

Two doctors affiliated with the Dutch East India Company in Japan,

Wilhelm Ten Rhyne and Engelbert Kaempfer, translated in a haphazard

way Chinese and Japanese medical works on acupuncture, supplemented

by occasional observations. T oge the r with Jesuit writings on China, these

texts would serve as major sources of information on Asian acupuncture

for the next century and more.

From the very beginning, according to Bivins, acupuncture in Europe

had already mutat ed into something very different from its Asian ancestor;

the main remaining tie between them was the use of needles in medicalpractice. Because the early translators had little acquaintance with the

theoretical foundation of acupuncture in Chinese and Japanese medicine,

they misconstrued its theory of the body--the q i or chi model. They

figured that q i was a regular material fluid or 'wind', and acupuncture

worked just like "pricking a hot sausage" to let the heat out (p. 65).

There was therefore a fundamental disjunction between theory and prac-

tice in the process of 'translating' acupuncture. Bivins argues, somewhat

deterministically, that the Chinese theory couldn't have found a sym-

pathetic ear in Europe anyway because it didn't fit well with anatomy and

Baconian empiricism. Th e superficial similarity between the Chinese theory

and Galenism alone would have spelled its doom as the progressive quar-

ters of the medical elite were cham pion ing med icine grounded in the new

science. Acupunctu re in Europe later became a technique of inserting

needles on the spots of pain instead of on the hundreds of nodal points

mapped out by the Chinese. It was often confused with bloodletting or

mistaken for a form o f anaesthetic. Thi s initial (mis)understanding would

long plague the reception of acupuncture in Europe.

The rest of the book traces the reception of acupuncture in the British

medical community during the nineteenth century. Acupuncture experi-enced a long drought of interest in Britain in the eighteenth century, but

fared better in France, where progressive medical men experimented with

it, along with other medical innovations such as Galvanism and Mesmer-

ism. Together with these new inventions, acupuncture was (re)imported

into Britain in the early nineteenth century. Interestingly, acupuncture

never fell into the ranks of quackery despite its dubious company, though

it never enjoyed any wide influence, either. By examining the major medical

journals, such as the Lanc e t Bivins assesses the presence of acupuncture,

and the form it assumed, in the mainst ream medical press. She notes that

there was a minor spurt of interest in the 1820s, but it soon subsided anddissipated. Acupuncture nevertheless survived in a few networks of med-

ical practitioners at certain Lo ndo n and provincial hospitals through m uch

of the ninet eenth century, until the emergence of another short-lived

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burst of interest near the end of that century. The book closes with an

account of the renewed interest in acupuncture since the 1970s. Bivins

points out that the current interest in acupuncture, like the previous

highpoints, coincided with a general fascination with things Chinese.

Bivins' central argument is simple and persuasive, and her approach

effective, if somewhat limiting. The book is based on close readings of

a few dozen printed travelogues, general histories of China, treatises on

acupuncture, and medical dictionaries and journals, most of which are

easily available at the major British libraries. Bivins summarises the texts,

zooms in on the key passages, and analyses them at length. The result is asuccession of textual analyses that are at the same time insightful and repet-

itive. This approach occasionally invites suspicion of over-interpretation ,

especially when the author routinely discovers in the paragraphs and

sentences broad historical significance. One is tempted to think that

a little more patient research would have strengthened the book. One

wonders, for example, if the thirty or more acupuncturists identified in

the book, several of whom were noted physicians and surgeons at the

time, left traces in the archives. Wouldn't it be worthwhile to reconstruct

their networks by combing through their correspondence? Since some of

them had affiliations with metropolit an or provincial hospitals, and some

of the hospitals evidently included acupuncture in their regular medical

education and treatments, it seems that investigations into the staffs and

curricula of the hospitals would be rewarding. As a result of its restrictive

approach, the book does not provide the same complex, in-depth, and

wide-ranging description of the British medical communitie s as do Adrian

Desmond's The Politics of volution (Chicago, 1992) or Alison Winter's

Mesmerized (Chicago, 1998).

As Bivins' primary interests lie within the context of the elite medical

community in Britain, only the first third of the book actually considersthe issue of'cross-cultural medicine'. (In a footnote, Bivins notes that she

is n6t a sinologist.) The rest of the book dwells on the British medical

community and its interest, or lack thereof, in 'European' or totally

'Europeanised' acupuncture. Little attention is paid to the large numbers

of British medical missionaries and residents in China who kept up regular

correspondence with the scientific community at home. They frequently

wrote about Chinese medicine in Western periodicals in China and in

their letters to Europe. The reader's confidence slightly diminishes when

the author casually describes Dr Robert Morrison as a prominent medical

missionary in China (p. 103). Morri son, a famous missionary indeed,had no formal medical training and got his honorary degree in literature

through his achievements in sinology and translation of the Bible. No

Westerners in China at the time regarded him as a physician. Like many

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of his compatriots in China, however, Morrison did collect information

about Chinese medicine and transmit it to their scientific friends in Britain.

Unfo rtun ately Bivins quickly dismisses their efforts. The book thus side-

steps the recent development in the history of the British empire, which

stresses its influence on the metropole.

David Wright's book, which draws upon recent research by Chinese

scholars, looks at the other side of cross-cultural translation of science

between Europe and East Asia. It discusses the introduction of Western

chemistry--inc luding the books, language, and concep tions- -into China

during the decades between the Opium War and the end of the nineteenthcentury. The translators involved in the process included Western

missionaries and advisors in China, their Chinese associates, and later

Chinese intellectuals who hoped to modernise China. Wright argues that

these translators were indeed agents of a profound series of changes,

in science, technology, and the worldview of the Chinese (p. xxi). In

chemistry, as well as a variety of other fields, the second half of the

nineteenth century witnessed a significant transformation. This is not a

particularly controversial thesis, although it is somewhat compromised

by the fact that the process of translating chemistry experienced many

setbacks and did not actually take off until the early twentieth century.

The efforts of the n inete enth-century translators laid part of the founda-

tion upon which new enterprises could be built. The book therefore

complements James Reardon-Anderson's The Study of Change: Chemistry

in China 1840-19 49 (Cambridge, 1991), which concentrates on the twen-

tieth century.

The first notable attempt to introduce Western chemistry into

China appeared after the Opium War, when Western missionaries set up

printing establishments in Shanghai. With native assistants, they translated

and printed religious and other texts, including introductory science books.Later, lay Westerners would join in the enterprise of translating and

int roducing science into China. Faced with the aggression of Western

imperialism, the Chinese government struggled to learn Western military

technology and related sciences. John Fryer, W. J. P. Martin, and others

worked with the Chinese government on translation projects that tu rned

out hundreds of books in science, engineering, and other fields that were

considered important to China's reform movements.

John Fryer's Chinese associate Xu Shou was one of the main charac-

ters in Wright's book. A talented engineer and experimental scientist,

Xu Shou pursued research in chemistry and other areas. With a Chinesecolleague, he built a small steamboat that sailed on the Yangzi at the

speed of four knots. He also studied mathematics, musicology, and optics.

Fryer founded the Shanghai Polytechnic, a scientific institute, and passed

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its management onto Xu Shou. In an interesting chapter, Wright suggests

that because of their different cultural backgrounds, Xu Shou and Fryer

disagreed on the purpose of the Shanghai Polytechnic. Fryer envisioned

it as an institute for public lectures and scientific demonstrations. As

public spectacle, science would attract large audiences. Xu Shou, on the

other hand, equated the Polytechnic to a reclusive college of learning in

the Chinese tradition and disliked public attention. Wright states that this

conflict of views helps explain the struggle of the Polytechnic, which

never enjoyed much success. Although Wright does not have strong evid-

ence to support this interpretation, his idea about science as spectacle inChina deserves further research. Did science as spectacle play a role in

the introduction of Western science into China? How did the museums ,

observatories, and public scientific institutes in China promote public

interest in science? It is worth noticing, too, that many of these Chinese

scientists came from the provinces of the Lower Yangzi region. Wright

attributes this phenomenon to the tradition of k ozhengscholarship in the

region. It has been argued that k ozheng or evidential learning, which

emphasized concrete and experiential scholarship, had fostered interest

among Chinese scholars in mathematics and Jesuit science. Wright simply

extends this argument. Although he has not come up with concrete

evidence from the writings of Chinese scientists to back up this claim, it

is a plausible conjecture. Since Wright has not reconstructed the commun-

ity or network of these Chinese intellectuals, more research is needed.

My sense is that other factors, such as the proximity of Western presence,

were just as important.

In general, as Wright shows, the principal facilities for disseminating

Western science in China were translated books, Western-style schools,

and periodicals. Th e translation of Western scientific books into Chinese

increased rapidly over the nineteenth century. Despite the poor quality ofthe translations, which is only to be expected as the translators were not

experts on the subjects, the books made available to the Chinese included

many introductory science texts. In the meantime, Western-style education

appeared in the coastal cities. Missionary schools occasionally offered

science courses, but it was the new schools sponsored by the Chinese

government that provided the bulk of education in science and engineer-

ing. Students trained at these schools would either join the government

service upon graduation or study abroad. They would eventually become

middle-ranking civil servants or military advisors. Their numbers were

still small, and their career prospects seemed narrow. In fact, many droppedout in the process for the more lucrative opportunities in international

trade. The political struggle within the Chinese government also sabotaged

the reform movements and new education. Not until the first decade of

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t h e t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y , a f t e r th e a b o l i t io n o f t r a d i ti o n a l n a t i o n a l e x a m i n a -

t i o n s , w o u l d W e s t e r n - s t y l e e d u c a t i o n g a i n r e s p e c t .

A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t v e n u e f o r d i s s e m i n a t i n g W e s t e r n s c ie n c e in t h e la st

d e c a d e s o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y w a s p o p u l a r s c i e n ti fi c j o u r n a li s m . T h e r e

w e r e a d o z e n o r s o p e r i o d i c a ls i n C h i n a t h a t r e g u l a r ly p u b l i s h e d a r ti c le s

o n s c i e n t if i c m a t t e r s , i n c l u d i n g a f e w d e v o t e d e n t ir e l y to t h e t o p i c. S o m e

o f t h e p e r io d i c a l s w e r e l a u n c h e d b y m i s s i o n a r y g r o u p s , w h i le o t h e r s

w e r e l a u n c h e d b y C h i n e se g o v e r n m e n t o r p r iv a te o r g an i za t io n s . T h e m o r e

p o p u l a r o f t h e m h a d c i r c u l a t io n s i n th e t h o u s a n d s . T h e p e r i o d i c a ls t h u s

r e a c h e d s iz e a b le a u d i e n c e s i n th e t r e a t y p o r t s a n d o t h e r m a j o r c i ti e s. B yt h e e n d o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , m a n y C h i n e s e i n t e ll e c tu a l s a lr e a d y

t o o k g r e a t i n te r e s t in W e s t e r n s c i e n c e , a n d t h is d e s ir e f o r n e w k n o w l e d g e

w a s r e f l e c t e d i n t h e r e a d e r s ' q u e r i e s s u b m i t t e d t o t h e p e r i o d i c a l s . S o m e

C h i n e s e i n te l le c t u a ls e v i d e n t l y p u r s u e d s c ie n t if ic re s e a r c h a t h o m e . O f

c o u r s e t h e p e o p l e e x p o s e d t o W e s t e r n s c i e n c e s ti ll c o n s t i t u t e d o n l y a ti n y

p e r c e n t a g e o f t h e v a s t p o p u l a t i o n o f C h i n a , a n d t h e y c o n c e n t r a t e d i n a

n u m b e r o f u r b a n c e n tr e s. Y e t t h is p a v e d a ro a d to t h e m u c h b r o a d e r

e n t e r p r i s e o f i n t r o d u c i n g s c i e n c e i n t o C h i n a i n t h e t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y .

W r i g h t is s e n s it iv e to t h e c o n t r o v e r s y a n d t h e r a p i d c h a n g e s i n th e

s c i e n c e o f c h e m i s t ry a t t h e t im e . S c i e n t is t s in E u r o p e c o u l d n o t a g r e e

a m o n g t h e m s e l v e s o n b a s i c c o n c e p t s l ik e a t o m s a s w e l l a s o n c h e m i c a l

n o m e n c l a t u r e . S c i e n c e b o o k s n a t u r a l l y r e f le c t e d t h e s e i n c o n s is t e n c i e s a n d

c o n t r a d i c t i o n s , w h i c h w e r e p r e s e r v e d o r e v e n a g g r a v a t e d i n th e p r o c e s s

o f t r a n s la t io n . T o c o m p l i c a t e t h e m a t t e r , t h e t r a n s la t o r s h a d t o in v e n t

C h i n e s e n o m e n c l a t u r e a n d n e o l o g i s m s i n o r d e r to r e n d e r t h e f o r e ig n t e r m s

a n d i d e a s . I t w a s a d if f i c u l t t a sk . B e s i d e s , t h e r e w a s l it tl e c o o r d i n a t i o n

a m o n g t h e t r an s l at o r s; c o n f u s i o n i n te r m i n o l o g y w a s a ll b u t i n e v i t a b l e .

W h a t , t h e n , d e t e r m i n e d t h e fa t es o f t h e d if f e r e n t s y s te m s o f t e r m i n o l o g y

o r , s o m e t i m e s , t h e v a r i o u s v e r s i o n s t r a n s l a t i o n o f t h e s a m e t ex t ? W r i g h tp r o p o s e s a D a r w i n i a n m o d e l t h a t s u p p o s e d l y p r o v i d e s a u n i v e r s a l a n s w e r

t o t h e p r o b l e m w h y c e r t a in t r a n s l a t e d p h r a s e s s u r v i v e a n d t h r iv e , a n d

o t h e r s n o t. T h e t h e o r y p r e s e n t s m o r e q u e s t i o n s t h a n a n s w e r s , h o w e v e r ,

a n d i t d o e s n o t h e l p u s u n d e r s t a n d p a r t i c u l a r h i s to r i c a l p e r i o d s , e v e n t s ,

a n d h u m a n d e c i s i o n s - - t h i n g s w i th w h i c h h i s to r ia n s a r e p ri m a r i l y c o n -

c e m e d . I t m i g h t b e t r u e t h a t t h e r e a r e l i n g u is t ic , so c i a l, a n d c u l t u r a l f a c to r s

t h a t c o n s t i tu t e d a n e n v i r o n m e n t i n w h i c h t r a n s la t e d s c ie n ti fi c t e r m s

c o m p e t e w i t h e a c h o t h e r f o r s u r v i v a l . B u t t h e t h e o r y , e v e n i f i t is t r u e ,

d o e s n o t t el l u s , f o r e x a m p l e , w h y t h e C h i n e s e g o v e r n m e n t d e c i d e d t o

s t a n d a r d i s e s c ie n ti fi c t e r m i n o l o g y a t a p a r t i c u l a r h i s t o ri c a l t i m e , w h o w e r et h e p r in c i p a l a c to r s , h o w t h e a g r e e m e n t s a n d d e c i s i o n s w e r e r e a c h e d ,

w h o w e r e t h e s c ie n t if ic p u b l i c , a n d t h e d e g r e e t o w h i c h t h e s ta t e c o u l d

i m p l e m e n t i t s r u le s . A l l t h e s e m a t t e r s a r e b a s i c i s s u e s f o r h i s t o r ic a l i n q u i r y .

t AAHPSSS,2002 ~83



SURV YR VI W

Both books are notable contributions to an important but und er-

developed area of research. A better unde rstan ding of cross-cultural trans-

mission of science and medicine will shed light on the way in which the

modern scientific world has come into being. What were the processes,

networks, and mechanisms of knowledge exchange, translation, and

circulation that created the global and local conditions of scientific or

medical theories and practices? Both Bivins and Wright have pointed in

the right direction. Unfortunately, however, neither of the books pays

much attention to the broad historical contexts in which the translation

of science between Europe and East Asia took place, nor do they engagemuc h with the growing literature on scientific imperialism, medicine an d

empire, and related issues. Neither of them, moreover, has much to say

abou t scientific subjects other than the immedia tely concerned ones. Bivins

briefly mentions moxibustion, but never traces its subsequent , and relat-

ively successful, adoption in Britain after its sevent eenth-century intro-

duction. Wright glances over physics, medicine, and natural history. O ne

has an impression that important aspects of cross-cultural science and

medicine are left unexplored. How did different conceptions of nature,

healing, health, materiality, etc. come into play in scientific and medical

encounters? Of course, both Wright and Bivins touch upon these issues,

but they have not addressed them head on. This problem will probably

be remedied when newer projects on scientific contact between China

and 'the West' begin to appear in print. For example, there are at least

two book-length studies on acupuncture in the United States and Europe

that are nearing publication. While it is unlikely that we'll have another

thick volume on chemistry in nineteen th-centu ry China in the immediate

future, curr ent research will add m uch to our u nde rstanding of chemistry,

and other sciences, in late Qing and modern China.

Departme nt of History,

State Unive rsity of New York,

Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA.

84 9 AAHPSSS, 2002

science and medicine, asia and europe (revisión de libro)

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