scholarly journals A Gift from the Buddhist Monastery: The Role of Buddhist Medical Practices in the Assimilation of the Opium Poppy in Chinese Medicine during the Song Dynasty (960–1279)

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-493
Author(s):  
Jose A. Canton-Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Medical Application ◽  
Opium Poppy ◽  
Medical Practices ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Medical Treatises

This paper aims to critically appraise the incorporation of opium poppy into medical practice in Song-dynasty China. By analysing materia medica and formularies, along with non-medical sources from the Song period, this study sheds light on the role of Chinese Buddhist monasteries in the process of incorporation of foreign plants into Chinese medicine. It argues that Buddhist monasteries played a significant role in the evolution of the use of opium poppy in Song dynasty medicine. This is because the consumption practices in Buddhist monasteries inspired substantial changes in the medical application of the flower during the Southern Song dynasty. While, at the beginning of Song dynasty, court scholars incorporated opium poppy into official materia medica in order to treat disorders such as huangdan  and xiaoke, as well as cinnabar poisoning, this study of the later Song medical treatises shows how opium poppy was repurposed to treat symptoms such as diarrhoea, coughing and spasms. Such a shift in the medical use of the poppy occurred after Chinese literati and doctors became acquainted with the role of the flower in the diet and medical practices of Buddhist monks across China. Therefore, the case study of the medical application of opium poppy during the Song dynasty provides us with insights into how the spread of certain practices in Buddhist monasteries might have contributed to the change in both professional medical practices and daily-life healthcare in local communities in that period.

Nourishing Life, Cultivation and Material Culture in the Late Ming: Some Thoughts on Zunsheng bajian (Eight Discourses on Respecting Life, 1591)

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Hsiu-fen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Late Ming

AbstractThis article sets out to explore the ideas and practices of yangsheng (nourishing life or health preservation) in the late Ming, i.e. late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century China. Yangsheng had long played a key role in the traditions of Chinese medicine, religions and court societies. Initially restricted to certain social classes and milieux, knowledge of yangsheng began to spread much more widely from the Song dynasty (960–1279) onwards, mostly owing to rapid social and economic change. In this context, the theories and practices of yangsheng attracted the attention and curiosity of many scholars. The popularisation of yangsheng peaked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Numerous literary works, essay collections and household encyclopaedias for everyday use have passages and sections on yangsheng. They describe various ideas and techniques of yangsheng by means of regulating the body in daily life, involving sleeping, exercising, washing, eating, drinking, etc. Through a survey of the most famous late Ming work on yangsheng, Zunsheng bajian (1591), this article attempts to highlight how yangsheng came to dominate the scholarly lifestyle. It will give a clear picture of the ideas of a late Ming literatus on prolonging life and replenishing the body, while showing how these practices were inspired by the flourishing material culture of the late Ming as a whole.

Redefining Good Government: Shifting Paradigms in Song Dynasty (960-1279) Discourse on "Fengjian"

T oung Pao ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 97 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 301-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaeyoon Song
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Constitutional Discourse

AbstractThis article describes changing political visions of the Chinese literati during the two halves of the Song dynasty, as reflected in their discourse on the fengjian (classical enfeoffment) system of antiquity. In the aftermath of the An Lushan rebellion (755-763), a group of political thinkers criticized that system as an ungrounded historical anachronism. This idea gained currency among a majority of the Northern Song statesmen and literati who supported the centralization project of the founding emperors. With the fall of the Northern Song, the ancient fengjian doctrine resurfaced as a sustained constitutional discourse on government. Contesting the imperial vision of centralization and interventionism, Southern Song literati redefined good government for their time.

Commercializing Medicine or Benefiting the People – The First Public Pharmacy in China

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asaf Goldschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Relative Ease ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medicinal Drug

ArgumentIn this article I describe the establishment and early development of an institution that is unique to the history of Chinese medicine – the Imperial Pharmacy (惠 民 藥 局). Established in 1076 during the great reforms of the Song dynasty, the Imperial Pharmacy was a remarkable institution that played different political, social, economic, and medical roles over the years of its existence. Initially it was an economic institution designed to curb the power of plutocrats who were manipulating medicinal drug markets in their favor. A few decades later, I claim, the Imperial Pharmacy became a public-health-oriented institution focusing on selling readymade prescriptions in addition to simples. Various records, including local gazetteers and local maps, indicate that the Imperial Pharmacy expanded about a century after it was established to include dozens of branches throughout the empire. The Pharmacy's impact on the practices of physicians during these years is somewhat vague. It seems, however, to have posed an unwelcome addition to the medical scene, since it enabled uninitiated practitioners who relied on the Pharmacy's formulary to fit patients' symptoms to their own prescriptions and dispense medications with relative ease.

scholarly journals 張仲景醫學倫理學思想述評

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Jinhai YAN ◽  
Yanjie PENG ◽  
Yue YANG
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Traditional Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Confucian Ethics ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Medical Academy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.東漢時代的張仲景是中醫歷史最重要的醫家之一，被稱之為中國的希波克拉底。其名著《傷寒雜病論》成為中華醫學最重要的經典。在該書的序言中，張仲景系統闡述了其醫學倫理思想和行醫原則。認為醫師行醫的前提是實踐對自我與族群生命的熱愛；行醫的橋樑是用人類理性去發現健康與疾病的規律及控制的手段；行醫的準則是對醫術的認真與創新的態度。就其醫學倫理思想而言，張仲景醫學倫理的基本框架與中國傳統的儒家思想相吻合，反映了醫儒同道的精神。其思想對宋代以後“醫學儒化”的風尚具有一定的影響。作者認為，張仲景醫學倫理學亦對構建當代中國生命倫理學的構建具有啟發意義。Zhang Zongjing (150-219), known as the Chinese Hippocrates, was one of the most eminent physicians in China during the Han Dynasty. In the Shanghailun, a famous treatise on cold pathogenic diseases, Zhang not only described past medicinal discoveries but provided regulations for contemporary medical practice. The Shanghailun is thus an important text for scholars of the history of traditional Chinese medicine. The treatise was privately transmitted with no public acknowledgment until the Jin Dynasty (265-420), when it was re-edited and rearranged. The treatise received more attention and became increasingly popular during the Song Dynasty, when a Confucian basis for medical practice was endorsed by the government. Zhang has since been regarded as a sage of Chinese medicine. The Shanghailun also became part of the compulsory curriculum at China’s Imperial Medical Academy. Zhang has a special status in the history of Chinese medicine due to his efforts to create an orthodox system of medical practice in line with the Confucian (Ru) tradition.In this paper, Zhang Zongjing’s major ideas on medical ethics and practice are explored. The author illustrates the critical role played by Zhang’s approach to medicine in the later Confucianization of medicine during the Song Dynasty, which in turn created the ideal of the traditional Confucian physician. The author also compares the ethical views of Zhang Zongjing with those of Sun Simiao (541-682), another key figure in the history of traditional Chinese medicine, who combined Confucian ethics with the moral teachings of Daoism and Buddhism.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 237 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

scholarly journals Technical Studies and Replication of Guan Ware, an Ancient Chinese Ceramic

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Jiazhi ◽  
Deng Zequn ◽  
Xu Jiming
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
North China ◽  
Zhejiang Province ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Southern Song Dynasty ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Technical Studies

When North China was invaded in 1127, the emperor of the Song dynasty moved the capital to Lin'an (now called Hangzhou) in Zhejiang Province southeast of Shanghai. He established the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279 a.d.), known as a period of cultural flowering and stability in Chinese history. Several years later, official kilns were built by court officials to meet the need for the porcelains required for use at the Southern Song palace.

The Design Concept and the Phonological System of Huangji Jingshi: Shengyin Changhe Tu: On the Influence of Image-Number Yijing Studies on the Creation of the Korean Alphabet

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-92
Author(s):  
Sung-Mu Wang
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Design Concept ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Historical Phonology ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Humanistic Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Blind Spots

Among the extant rhyme tables of the Song Dynasty, Shao Yong’s (1011–1077) Huangji Jingshi: Shengyin Changhe Tu is the most unique. It is different from other phonological tables, such as Yunjing and Qiyin Lue, that were designed for the interpretation of fanqie formulae in terms of arrangement and phonological terminology. However, most contemporary scholars have failed to notice the unique design in Shengyin Changhe Tu and merely follow Karlgren’s paradigm, which contends that a phonological table objectively reflects certain dialectal phonological features through the prism of historical phonology. Instead, the present paper approaches the question of how the rhyme table is structured from the perspective of the history of phonological philosophy rather than historical phonology. By so doing, the role of philologists is reconsidered as that of a rhyme designer constructing an ideal sound system, rather than that of a dialectologist investigating a real sound system. The following questions are then discussed: What is the purpose for compiling such a work as Shengyin Changhe Tu and what are its design motivations? Can other scholars’ reconstructions of the sound system and sound values of Shengyin Changhe Tu be considered reasonable? In addition to Shengyin Changhe Tu, did the Image-Number Yijing School have any impact on the design of the later phonological tables? In this way the author wishes to develop a new humanistic approach toward understanding of the rhyme tables in order to correct the blind spots and flaws resulting from an overly extreme tendency toward scientism.

The Last Days of the Song Dynasty: Evidence of the Flight of Song Officials to Southeast Asia before the Mongol Invasions

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-337
Author(s):  
ADAM T. KESSLER
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Zhejiang Province ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Southern Song Dynasty ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn the first part of the 13th century ce, Khubilai Khan's armies began their invasion of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). When they reached the Song capital Lin'anfu at Hangzhou City, Zhejiang province, at the beginning of 1276, the Song officials decided to flee south with the two Song child heirs to the throne. This article examines ancient records of the flight of the Song court with particular emphasis on the history of its famous Prime Minister Chen Yizhong. Archaeological evidence is further evaluated as it relates to Chen's exploits within China and in Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals Wine and Myrrh as Medicaments or a Commentary on Some Aspects of Ancient and Byzantine Mediterranean Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 615-655
Author(s):  
Zofia Rzeźnicka ◽  
Maciej Kokoszko
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Medical Procedures ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Medical Treatises ◽  
Insight Into

The present study has resulted from a close reading of prescriptions for therapeutic wines inserted in book V of De materia medica by Pedanius Dioscorides, the eminent expert in materia medica of the 1st century A.D. The authors emphasise the role of wine varieties and selected flavourings (and especially of myrrh) in order to determine the social status of those to whom the formulas were addressed. This perspective gives the researchers ample opportunity for elaborating not only on the significance of wine in medical procedures but also for underscoring the importance of a number of aromatics in pharmacopoeia of antiquity and Byzantium. The analysis of seven selected formulas turns out to provide a fairly in-depth insight into Mediterranean society over a prolonged period of time, and leads the authors to draw the following conclusions. First, they suggest that medical doctors were social-inequality-conscious and that Dioscorides and his followers felt the obligation to treat both the poor and the rich. Second, they prove physicians’ expertise in materia medica, exemplifying how they were capable of adjusting market value of components used in their prescriptions to financial capacities of the patients. Third, the researchers circumstantiate the place of medical knowledge in ancient, and later on in Byzantine society. Last but not least, they demonstrate that medical treatises are an important source of knowledge, and therefore should be more often made use of by historians dealing with economic and social history of antiquity and Byzantium.

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