University of California Press
Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues Volume 18
Key Metrics
- Paul U Unschuld
- University of California Press
- Hardcover
- 9780520363625
- -
- -
- History > Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The original text of the Nan-ching was compiled during the first century A.D. by an unknown author. From that time forward, this ancient text provoked an ongoing stream of commentaries. Following the Sung era, it was misidentified as merely an explanatory sequel to the classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Huang-ti nei-ching. This volume, however, demonstrates that the Nan-ching should once again be regarded as a significant and innovative text in itself.
It marked the apex and the conclusion of the initial development phase of a conceptual system of health care based on the doctrines of the Five Phases and yinyang. As the classic of the medicine of systematic correspondence, the Nan-ching covers all aspects of theoretical and practical health care within these doctrines in an unusually systematic fashion. Most important is its innovative discussion of pulse diagnosis and needle treatment.
Unschuld combines the translation of the text of the Nan-ching with selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors from the past seventeen centuries. These commentaries provide insights into the processes of reception and transmission of ancient Chinese concepts from the Han era to the present time, and shed light on the issue of progress in Chinese medicine. Central to the book, and contributing to a completely new understanding of traditional Chinese medical thought, is the identification of a patterned knowledge that characterizes--in contrast to the monoparadigmatic tendencies in Western science and medicine--the literature and practice of traditional Chinese health care.
Unschuld's translation of the Nan-ching is an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists as well as general readers interested in traditional Chinese medicine--but who lack Chinese language abilities--will at last have access to ancient Chinese concepts of health care and therapy. Filling an enormous gap in the literature, Nan-ching--The Classic of Difficult Issues is the kind of landmark work that will shape the study of Chinese medicine for years to come.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.
Author Bio
Paul U. Unschuld is the director of the Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences, Charité-Universitaetsmedizin Berlin. His books include What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing (2009) and The Fall and Rise of China: Healing the Trauma of History (2013).
- Research Interests
- Comparative History of Chinese and European Medical History.
Comparative History of Chinese and Western Medical Ethics/Bioethics.
Public Health Issues associated with Heterogenous Health Care Systems in Contemporary Western and NonWestern Societies.
Source: icl.charite.de
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