Globalisation Interrupted? The Case of Opium in the Circulation of Medical Knowledge in Ming Dynasty China

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Cantón Álvarez

The spread of Western medical practices to China, initiated during the Mongol dynasty, is often considered an example of “medical globalisation,” but few studies have looked at the actual level of adoption of Western medicine in the period after the Yuan dynasty. This essay analyses eighteen Ming dynasty medical sources in order to assess the role of opium, a Western drug, in post-Yuan medical practice. This essay concludes that opium was not widely used in the first centuries of the Ming dynasty, and, when finally adopted in the sixteenth century, its use was disconnected from the Yuan dynasty medical tradition. These findings make us question the continuity and even the existence of the “Mongol medical globalisation,” as well as the validity of the use of synchronic methodology for the study of centuries-long processes such as globalisation.

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth G Nabel

The role of a physician as healer has grown more complex, and emphasis will increasingly be on patient and family-centric care. Physicians must provide compassionate, appropriate, and effective patient care by demonstrating competence in the attributes that are essential to successful medical practice. Beyond simply gaining medical knowledge, modern physicians embrace lifelong learning and need effective interpersonal and communication skills. Medical professionalism encompasses multiple attributes, and physicians are increasingly becoming part of a larger health care team. To ensure that physicians are trained in an environment that fosters innovation and alleviates administrative burdens, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has recently revamped the standards of accreditation for today’s more than 130 specialties and subspecialties. This chapter contains 6 references and 5 MCQs.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth G Nabel

The role of a physician as healer has grown more complex, and emphasis will increasingly be on patient and family-centric care. Physicians must provide compassionate, appropriate, and effective patient care by demonstrating competence in the attributes that are essential to successful medical practice. Beyond simply gaining medical knowledge, modern physicians embrace lifelong learning and need effective interpersonal and communication skills. Medical professionalism encompasses multiple attributes, and physicians are increasingly becoming part of a larger health care team. To ensure that physicians are trained in an environment that fosters innovation and alleviates administrative burdens, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has recently revamped the standards of accreditation for today’s more than 130 specialties and subspecialties. This review contains six references.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-134
Author(s):  
Olivia Milburn

Abstract Zhao Luanluan 趙鸞鸞 is the main protagonist of an early Ming dynasty work of fiction, the “Luanluan zhuan” 鸞鸞傳 or “The Tale of Luanluan” by Li Changqi 李昌祺 (1376–1452), which is found in his collection of twenty-two short stories: Jiandeng yuhua 剪燈餘話 (More Stories Written While Trimming the Lamp). Zhao Luanluan is here described as a woman poet who is caught up in the fall of the Yuan dynasty, but subsequently she was further fictionalized as a Tang dynasty courtesan, and her poetic works reattributed to this imaginary person. Furthermore other related fictional female poets of the Ming dynasty have also been treated as genuine historical individuals, and their writings are included in many major anthologies of women’s poetry. This paper argues that the boundaries between genuine female poets and fictional female poets created by male writers have been consistently ignored.


Author(s):  
Norma Camilla Baratta ◽  
Giulio Magli

AbstractPresent day Beijing developed on the urban layout of the Ming capital, founded in 1420 over the former city of Dadu, the Yuan dynasty capital. The planning of Ming Beijing aimed at conveying a key political message, namely that the ruling dynasty was in charge of the Mandate of Heaven, so that Beijing was the true cosmic centre of the world. We explore here, using satellite imagery and palaeomagnetic data analysys, symbolic aspects of the planning of the city related to astronomical alignments and to the feng shui doctrine, both in its “form” and “compass” schools. In particular, we show that orientations of the axes of the “cosmic” temples and of the Forbidden City were most likely magnetic, while astronomy was used in topographical connections between the temples and in the plan of the Forbidden City in itself.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth G Nabel

The role of a physician as healer has grown more complex, and emphasis will increasingly be on patient and family-centric care. Physicians must provide compassionate, appropriate, and effective patient care by demonstrating competence in the attributes that are essential to successful medical practice. Beyond simply gaining medical knowledge, modern physicians embrace lifelong learning and need effective interpersonal and communication skills. Medical professionalism encompasses multiple attributes, and physicians are increasingly becoming part of a larger health care team. To ensure that physicians are trained in an environment that fosters innovation and alleviates administrative burdens, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has recently revamped the standards of accreditation for today’s more than 130 specialties and subspecialties. This review contains 6 references.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth G Nabel

The role of a physician as healer has grown more complex, and emphasis will increasingly be on patient and family-centric care. Physicians must provide compassionate, appropriate, and effective patient care by demonstrating competence in the attributes that are essential to successful medical practice. Beyond simply gaining medical knowledge, modern physicians embrace lifelong learning and need effective interpersonal and communication skills. Medical professionalism encompasses multiple attributes, and physicians are increasingly becoming part of a larger health care team. To ensure that physicians are trained in an environment that fosters innovation and alleviates administrative burdens, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has recently revamped the standards of accreditation for today’s more than 130 specialties and subspecialties. This review contains six references.


Author(s):  
Samida Toshmukhammedovna Mustafaeva ◽  

The Ming period is recognized as a period that introduced a new genre to Chinese literature, especially Chinese prose. During this period, novels from the masterpieces of Chinese literature saw the light of day. They are a valuable source for the study of Chinese literary language, as well as providing valuable information on the plot, historical facts, and the Darwin. In particular, the novel "Three Kingdoms", created in the Ming period, has a large volume and a plot rich in sharp turns, the events of the novel are based on the collapse of the Eastern Khanate, in general, various contradictions in public administration, political, military and foreign relations. The diversity in the author’s depiction of contradictions and struggles, the uniqueness in the depiction of each event, demonstrates the writer’s unparalleled artistic skill. In contrast to the "Three Kingdoms", the plot of “Water Margins” is based on the peasant uprisings and struggles; the play depicts the emergence, development and decline of the peasant uprising. The play praises a number of rebellious heroes, most of the protagonists of the work are extremely vivid, and their character is clearly described. The influence of the successful creation of the novels “Three Kingdoms” and “Water Margins” on the creation of historical and heroic novels of the next period is incomparable. The first phase of the Ming period was a turning point in the history of literature. With the end of the Yuan Dynasty (元朝 Yuán cháo 1206-1368) and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, no other significant works were created during this period, except for two major novels, the Three Kingdoms (《三国演义》) and the River Basins (《水浒传》). It was not until 1465 that there was a renewal in drama and folk poetry.


Author(s):  
Zhen Nyanchen

In the field of the pictorial decoration of Chinese architecture, the decor of the period of the Ming and Qing dynasties is considered the most outstanding since, at that time, the technique was perfect, and the methods of decoration were rich in their diversity, which was not possible in previous eras. The polychrome painting of official buildings during the Ming and Qing dynasties’ reign is quite different from the Song dynasty’s polychrome painting. The transition from the Song dynasty’s polychrome painting to the Ming and Qing dynasties’ polychrome painting was completed during the Yuan dynasty’s reign. Due to the decrease of dougong in size in the Ming dynasty, polychrome painting began to be placed on beams. Xuanzi polychrome painting, which originated from painting beams under the Yuan dynasty, became the primary type. By the Qing dynasty, Hexi polychrome painting and Suzhou polychrome painting, which evolved from the folk polychrome painting of the Jiangnan region of the Ming dynasty, appeared. The Xuanzi type was one of the three main polychrome painting types in the Qing dynasty. It was fully developed compared to the Hexi type as it was used more widely. The article explains the development of the artistic features of the various decorative parts of Xuanzi polychrome painting during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the characteristics of each gradation, and the method of distinguishing it, as well as its place of application.


1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Maier

Most of the literature concerning traditional African medical practice has dealt with aspects often deemed ‘irrational,’ such as the role of priests, shrines, magic and religious ritual. M. J. Field's work demonstrates convincingly that these aspects of medical treatment in Ghana are essential in mitigating and curing psychosomatic illnesses as well as controlling neuroses. The emphasis on religious and psychological methods of treatment, however, can often lead to less perceptive conclusions, such as those of U.S. doctors visiting Ghana in 1960 who stated flatly that traditional medical practices there consist solely of ‘ignorance and superstition’ and that ‘witchdoctor … medicine man and native doctor are synonymous terms.


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