The Collection of Early Texts and the Establishment of Databases for Chinese Nationality Medicines

Abstract

National and local projects to systematize ethnic or “nationality” medical systems are well underway in many parts of China. With colleagues in the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, and in collaboration with scholars associated with various nationalities, we have undertaken the task of editing a catalog of early texts in Chinese minority nationality medicine. We argue that it is both more efficient and more intellectually coherent for the central government, rather than local nationality agencies, to lead the process and coordinate the work of a number of collaborating researchers from various nationality traditions and several regions. Through such collaboration we seek to gather and preserve the most essential textual information. The ultimate aim is to systematize all resources in a unified database in which diversities can still be perceived. In this discussion we report some of the history of archiving and database construction with special reference to Tibetan and Uighur medical history. And we conclude by discussing some of the practical, conceptual, and technical challenges that face any such project to systematize traditional bodies of knowledge.

Keywords:

• Traditional medicine archives
• databases of traditional knowledge
• history of minority nationality medicines in China

Acknowledgments

The research for this article is sponsored by the Nationality Medicine Literature Collation and Appropriate Technology Selection and Propagation program of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the People's Republic of China, and the Research on Methods for Collating the Literature of Tibetan Medicine and Uighur Medicine program of the China Institute for History of Medicine and Medical Literature. Translation by Xueting Liu and Judith Farquhar.

Notes

1 We translate zhengli 整理 in most cases as “collation and editing.” It should be noted that the same word is translated as “sorting” or “sorting out” in Farquhar and Lai in this issue.

2 Quoted from “Standards for Coding Minority Nationality Early Written Records,” produced under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and the State Nationality Affairs Commission (not yet formally issued, and under the responsibility of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities). This document indicates that “[the category of] minority nationality early written records mainly refers to editions written or printed in minority nationality written languages before 1912 in China and its historical domains (including minority nationality areas historically under local jurisdiction). Considering the objective differences and complexities in the processes of production, development, and circulation of minority nationality early written records, and of Chinese early records, these standards should conditionally extend the period of early records to 1949” (5). “This rule reflects the important historical, scholarly, and artistic value, and the traditional significance, of minority nationality works in their specific copied, printed, and traditionally crafted and bound forms. We should also protect the particularly valuable editions of works of this type that have been copied or reprinted after 1949, but such works do not belong to the category of early records. Works without direct relevance to minority nationality traditional culture produced between 1912 and 1949 also do not belong to the category of early records” (8).

3 Naturally, practitioners have always evaluated medicines and techniques on the basis of common perceptions of efficacy. But under contemporary conditions, when traditional medicines are being criticized for being unscientific, the appeal to efficacy is particularly central. At the same time, an appreciation of theoretical logics, authoritative sources, and historical grounding tends to be left to the historians and archivists.

4 Among the “five sciences” of Tibetan culture, the sciences of fine arts and crafts include crafts, techniques, and astrology. In fact, Tibetan medicine and cosmology have a very close relationship. This is why astrology is highlighted here.

5 In selecting the set of early literatures, the categorization of nationality medical works tends to adopt new demarcations and classifications made by modern scholars on the basis of their body of knowledge about traditional medicine in history. This has become a general rule for compiling large-scale reference works for the Chinese medicine literature. For example, the new edition of General Catalog of the Early Literature of Chinese Medicine in China (Xue 2007) has adopted this style of classification. But from the point of view of literature and history scholars, this approach merits some debate. Traditional medical knowledge and traditional local knowledge are thoroughly entangled. Tibetan medicine, for example, belongs to the category of the science of medicine in the Tibetan Buddhist religious system, such that the connections between Tibetan medical knowledge and religion are very close. Yet there is no way to express this kind of intimate interconnection in modern classifications. In the process of historical development, each medical knowledge system as it has evolved through various historical phases has at the same time gradually developed its own stable model of classification, forming inseparable links to other forms of traditional knowledge. But in the context of this new kind of classification and scientization, the new classes of traditional medicine show quite a few differences from the indigenous categories used within historical medical traditions. How should we deal with the relation between the different sorts of classification? This remains a problem for medical historians and literature scholars.

6 The complex social lives of databases in relation to Asian forms of traditional knowledge are also discussed in three other articles in this issue: Farquhar and Lai, Fish, and Gaudillière.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zhen Yan

Zhen Yan is associate professor in the Department of Minority Medicine, China Institute for History of Medicine and Medical Literature, at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing. She holds a PhD in the history of science, and her research concerns the medical history and literature of China's minority ethnic groups, especially the history of Tibetan medicine. At present she directs one national project, two projects for the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and several research projects in the academy. She has published China's Tibetan Medicine and two translations, An Illustrated Guide to Health Cultivation in Tibetan Medicine and Tibetan Herbal Legends. She is the author of over twenty academic articles, and she travels often to minority regions for collaborative work with Tibetan scholars.

Hu Yingchong

Hu Yingchong is an affiliated researcher in the Department of Minority Medicine, China Institute for History of Medicine and Medical Literature, at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, and has an MS in the history of science. His current research is on the history of medicine in China and on minority nationality medical traditions. He directs one independent research project and several projects within the academy. He is the coeditor of many research volumes and translator of two reference works. Important recent publications include “Preliminary Research on the Digitalization of Uighur Medical Literature” (Xinjiang Uighur Medical Technical Schools Report, 2011) and, as a coauthor, with Zhen Yan, “The Chronology of Affairs in Minority Nationality Medicine in Modern Times” (Chinese Journal of Medical History, 2012).