Hybridizing scholastic psychology with Chinese medicine: A seventeenth-century chinese catholic's conceptions of Xin (Mind and Heart)

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 313-360

  Zhang, Qiong ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

"Contact zone"; Chinese human anatomy; Chinese medicine; De anima; Giulio aleni sj (1582 1649); Heart; Honghan wang (17th century); Jesuit mission to china; Mind; Scholastic psychology

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CHINA; CHINESE MEDICINE; CLERGY; HISTORY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RELIGION;

CATHOLICISM; CHINA; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; MEDICINE, CHINESE TRADITIONAL; MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES; RELIGION AND MEDICINE;

EID: 61549086184     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/138374208X313467     Document Type: Article

References (137)

1. This text is attributed to Giacomo Rho, SJ (Luo Yagu , 1592-1638). The only complete copy of this text is held at Beijing University Library rare book division. Parts of the manuscript are reproduced in juan 4 of Fan Xingzhun, Mingji xiyang chuanru zhi yixue (Western medicine transmitted into China during the Ming Dynasty) (Shanghai, 1943).
2. For a study of the Western sources of Renshen tushuo, see N. Standaert, "A Chinese Translation of Ambroise Paré Anatomy," Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal, 21 (1999), 9-33.
3. Catherine Despeux has pointed out that there were two contradictory representations of the location of the liver in traditional Chinese medical texts-the anatomical one, derived from actual observations of human dissection, which locates the liver in the right side of the abdomen, and the therapeutic one, based on the theory of correspondence between the zangfu organs, the five phases, and the five directions, which locates the liver on the left side of the abdomen, this being the direction of the East and the position of wood. See Despeux, "Visual Representations of the Body in Chinese Medical and Daoist Texts from the Song to the Qing period (tenth to nineteenth century)," Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, 1.1 (2005), 10-53, at 27-29.
4. "Shu renshen tushuo hou ( Postscript to The Illustrated Account of the Human Body)," in Yu Zhengxie ( 1775-1840), Guisi leigao ( Classified manuscripts compiled in the year Guisi, 1834) (Shanghai, 1957), 545-547.
5. ) The idea that the physical constitutions of human beings, both as a group and as individuals, vary according to the environmental conditions of their locale had a strong basis in traditional Chinese cosmology and expressed itself through the theory of qibin ( endowment of qi), which was widely subscribed to by philosophers and medical doctors alike. Marta Hanson has discussed the medical significance of this theory in her article, "Robust Northerners and Delicate Southerners: The Nineteenth- Century Invention of a Southern Medical Tradition," in Innovation in Chinese Medicine, ed. Elisabeth Hsu (Cambridge, 2001), 262-291
6. This is not to say, of course, that the Chinese were unique in holding such beliefs. Even among modern Western intellectuals we find a similar readiness to hypothesize about biologically diverse humans and subhumans. Thus typical anthropological texts of the late eighteenth century would still classify Homo sapiens into a hierarchy of biologically defined racial types, featuring "wild man, American, European, Asiatic and African," and even for Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, such mythological subhuman creatures as the troglodyte, the tailed man, satyr, and the pygmy, were still solid realities. See Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 32-33.
7. Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, transl. by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge, 1985).
8. For well over half a century after its publication, Fan Xingzhuns Ming ji xiyang chuanru zhi yixue (1943, juan 9)
9. remained the standard account of Wang Honghans efforts to integrate Western and Chinese learning. But some recent studies have shed significant new light on the background and nature of Wang project. See, in particular, Zhu Pingyi , "Tongguan tianxue, yixue yu ruxue: Wang Honghan yu Ming Qing zhi ji yixue de jiaohui ( Medicine East and West: Wang Honghan Synthesis of Christianity, Medicine and Confucianism)," Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan, 70.1 (1999), 165-201.
10. Xu Haisong, Qingchu shiren yu xixue ( Scholars of Early Qing and Western Learning) (Beijing,2000), 146-164.
11. Xu Haisong used these exact terms to summarize the product of Wangs synthesis in his Qingchu shiren yu xixue, 159.
12. I use the term "contact zone," popularized by Mary Louise Pratt, as the "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other."
13. Pratts original formulation of "contact zone" was coined for contacts between two cultures of unequal relationship, such as in a colonial context. That, of course, does not apply here. See Pratt, "Arts of the Contact Zone," in Professing in the Contact Zone: Bringing Theory and Practice Together, ed. Janice M. Wolff (Urbana, IL, 2002), 1-18, at 4.
14. The character ru () literally means "scholar," and what has been rendered in the West as "Confucianism" is referred to in Chinese as rujia (, the "Tradition of the Scholars"). The term ruyi (, [Confucian] Scholar-Physician) first came into use during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when the rise of printing culture enabled medicine to move increasingly away from a carefully guarded trade transmitted within the family or from master to disciple and towards a publicly acquired discipline based on standardized printed canons and medical texts-a development that drew some members of the educated elite into medicine, who either wished to satisfy their personal interests or even chose it as a career. The latter group came to be called ruyi. In late imperial China, the label of ruyi was generally applied to someone who not only was well-educated but also upheld the moral values and aspirations of Confucianism. For further discussion on ruyi.
15. see Chen Yuanpeng Liang Song de shangyi shiren yu ruyi : jianlun qi zai Jin Yuan de liubian,On the Song Confucian Scholars who Appreciated Medicine and the [Confucian] Scholar- Physicians, with a subsidiary treatment on their followers during the Jin and Yuan dynasties) (Taibei, 1997).
16. For a list of such textual evidence, see Xu Haisong, Qingchu shiren yu xixue, 152- 153.
17. Of the more than a dozen books he is said to have written, only five are known to be extant. These include his Yixue yuanshi (Origins of Medicine, 1692), reprinted in Ming Qing zhongyi zhen shan guben jingxuan shi zhong ( Ten Rare and Single-Copy Medical Texts from the Ming and Qing) (Shanghai, 1989);
18. Gujin yishi (History of Medicine from Antiquity to the Present, 1698).
19. reprinted under medical specialists category in Xuxiu siku quanshu (Sequel to the Emperor Four Treasures, vol. 1030) (Shanghai, between 1995 and 1999)
20. Si zhen mai jian da quan ( Comprehensive Guide to the Four Diagnostic Measures and Pulse-Reading, 1694).
21. reprinted in Xuxiu siku quanshu, vol.999.
22. In addition, two other books of his exist only in single copies: Xingyuan guang si (Origination and Extension of [Human] Nature)
23. now held in the library of Yunnan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Qiankun gejin (, References for Inquiries into the Heavens and the Earth, 1691)
24. cf. Xu Haisong, , now held at Zhejiang University library.Qingchu shiren yu xixue, 150-51.
25. Wang Honghan, Gujin yishi, 378.
26. A brief biography of Wang Honghan and a collection of his medical cases are found in the appendix to Wang Honghan, Gujin yishi, 378.
27. Brief biographical accounts of Wang can also be found in the fourteenth collective medical biography in Chen Menglei et al, Qinding gujin tushu jicheng, Bowu huibian yishu dian (Imperial Compendium of Ancient and Modern Literature: compilation on broad learning, "arts" division), juan 537
28. He Shixi, Zhongguo lidai yijia zhuanlu (Biographies of Medical Doctors in Chinese History), 3 vols. (Beijing, 1991), 1: 86
29. in Xu Haisong,Qingchu shiren yu xixue,147-155.
30. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, author preface, 1. Emphasis added.
31. Zhu Pingyi argues that Wang used Western learning to build an image of the scholar-physician for himself so as to enhance his competitive edge in the crowded market of healers in the Jiangnan region. See his article, "Tongguan tianxue, yixue yu ruxue," 185-189.
32. Zhu Xi, Lunyu jizhu (Commentaries on the Confucian Analects) (Taibei: Taibei zhonghua chongshu weiyuanhui, 1958), 598-601.
33. The original statement in the Analects which Zhu Xi is commenting on here can be read literally in two ways: (i) A man without persistence cannot even make a spirit medium-healer (wuyi)"; (ii) "A man without persistence can neither become a spirit medium (wu ) nor a physician (yi )." (Analects 13.22). Zhu Xi was the first commentator to propose the second reading, which places medicine at the same level with spirit-mediumism.
34. Cf. Paul Unschuld, Medical Ethics in Imperial China: A Study in Historical Anthropology (Berkeley, 1979), 39
35. I here translate Wang phrase "yin yang zhi shu," which means literally "the art of yin and yang," as "occult art," because of its common usage in pre-modern Chinese literature as a reference to astrology, fortune telling, Fengshui siting of houses and tombs and other such techniques, which are roughly analogous to the way the predicate occult is used in current historical literature on pre-modern Europe.
36. Cf. Hanyu cihai ( Dictionary of the Chinese Language) (Beijing, 2003), vol.6, entry on "yin yang."
37. Wang Honghan, Gujin yishi, 345.
38. See note 9 above
39. On the relationships between Confucian learning and medicine and between Confucian scholars and physicians, see Chen Yuanpeng, Liang Song de "shangyi shiren" yu "ruyi"
40. Xu, Yiming, "Jianlun zhuxi dui gudai zhongyi fazhan de yingxiang"
41. (A Brief Discussion of Zhu Xi Influence on Ancient Chinese Medicine," in Zhu, Jieren (ed.), Mairu ershiyi shiji de zhuzi xue ( 21The Scholarship on Master Zhu at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century) (Shanghai, 2001), 396-402
42. Charlotte Furth, "The Physician as Philosopher of the Way: Zhu Zhengheng (1282-1358)," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 66.2 (2006), 423-459.
43. Cited from Xu Haisong, Qingchu shiren yu xixue, 155.
44. Yixue yuanshi, Author preface, 2. We can only speculate that this intellectual satisfaction with Western learning played a major role in Wang decision to convert to Catholicism.
45. Wang Jesuit sources are primarily the following: Nan Huairen (, Ferdinand Verbiest), Kunyu tushuo (Illustrated Account of the Heavens and the Earth, 1674);
46. Gao Yizhi (, Alfonso Vagnoni), Kongji gezhi (Investigation into the Material Compositions of the [Sublunary] Space, 1633)
47. Rulue A., Xingxue chushu, A Brief Outline of the Study on Human Nature, 1623, (Giulio Aleni) (A Brief Outline of the Study on Human Nature, 1623)
48. Tang Ruowang (, Adam Schall von Bell),Zhuzhi qunzhen (All Signs Indicating that the Lord Rules, 1628).
49. De anima, II, 412a27-28.
50. See Katharine Park and Eckhard Kessler, "The Concept of Psychology," in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge, 1988), 455-463, at 456.
51. For a systematic discussion on the origins and various dimensions of the conception of qi in Chinese thought, see Xiaoye Zejingyi, Fuyong Guangsi, Shanjing Yong, Ki no shis (Qi de si xiang: Zhongguo zi ran guan he ren de guan nian de fa zhan :Ideas of Qi: The Development of Chinese Views of Nature and Humanity, translated into Chinese by Li Qing (Shanghai, 1990).
52. Nathan Sivin points out that one finds no clear-cut dichotomy of mind and body in China before modern times. "The Chinese are perfectly able to distinguish these two when they wanted to do so. Physicians were much more interested, however, in their underlying integrity and interaction. In everyday practice, they assumed that physical abnormalities would have consequences for thought and feeling, and vice versa." Cf. "Emotional Counter Therapy," Essay II in his Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in Ancient China (Brookfield, VT, 1995), 1.
53. Huangdi neijing, Suwen [Plain Questions], ch. 3.
54. Huangdi neijing, Lingshu, ch. 30.
55. For a discussion of the Chinese medical concept of qi (Chi) in this connection, see Manfred Porkert, The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence (Cambridge, Mass, 1974), 173-176
56. Paul Unschuld, Huang di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text (Berkeley, 2003), 144-167; and (see n. 25), 273-306.
57. Wu Jing-Nuan translates hun and po as human soul and animal spirit, respectively; Ilza Veith translates them as the soul, or spiritual part of man that ascends to Heaven and the animal spirits or inferior soul, respectively. Wu Jing-Nuan (transl.), Lingshu or The Spiritual Pivot (Washington, D.C, 1993), 39;
58. Ilza Veith (transl.), The Yellow Emperor Classic of Internal Medicine, with a new forword by Ken Rose (Berkeley, 2002), 139.
59. Huangdi neijing, Suwen, ch. 9.
60. Huangdi neijing, Lingshu, ch. 8: "What follows shen as it goes and comes is hun; what accompanies jing as it exits or enters is po." The pairing of shen and hun was still current in the medical literature around Wang time. For example, in a medical case history compiled by Jiang Guan (1503-1565), we find a case of insomnia treated by a doctor named Xu Shuwei. The author notes that the patient, a certain Mr. Dong, "suffered from disturbance of shenqi (the qi of shen). Whenever he went to sleep, his hun flies about. Although his body was lying on the bed, his shenhun left it; therefore, he was frightful and had lots of dreams, not being able to sleep tight all through the durnight. He had seen many doctors, but none could help him. [Dr. Xu] asked him: what problem did the other doctors say you have Dong replied: They all believed that the problem is with my heart. Dr. Xu said: Judging from your pulses, your liver meridian has been invaded by noxious qi; the problem is not with your heart. Because your liver meridian is weak, noxious qi attacked it. Since the liver harbors the hun, this attack causes your hun to wander away. For ordinary people whose liver does not suffer such attacks, when they sleep, their hun returns to the liver, and their shen calms down. That is why they can fall asleep. In your case, since there is noxious qi in your liver, your hun cannot return. Therefore, when you lie down, it flies about as if it has departed your body." In this analysis, we find that although the doctor distinguished shen from hun (and thus a heart problem from a liver problem), he also spoke of them as acting together ("their hun returns to the liver, and their shen calms down"). Likewise, in the beginning of the narrative, the author himself uses "shenhun" as a composite term, a usage that is found in many other parts of this text. Jiang Guan, Mingyi leian ( Classified Medical Cases of Famous Doctors) (Qinding siku quanshu edition), juan 6, 66b.
61. Zuo Zhuan [Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] records the following incident dated to 535 BCE. In that year, the people of the state of Zheng were terrified by Boyou ghost until the prime minister of the state, Zichan, appointed Boyou son to succeed Boyou former position. In defending his decision, Zichan ventured an explanation of why and how ghosts are formed. He said: "In man life the first transformations are called the earthly aspect of the soul -po. After po has been produced, that which is strong and positive is called the heavenly aspect of the soul -hun. If he had abundance in the use of material things and subtle essentials, his hun and po will be strong. From this are developed essence and understanding until there are spirit and intelligence. When an ordinary man or woman dies a violent death, the hun and po [do not disperse immediately but] are still able to keep hanging about men and do evil and malicious things." (Transl. cited from Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy [Princeton, 1963], 12).
62. Note that even here the survival of hun and po was already seen as out of the ordinary. On the origin and usages of hunpo and jingshen in pre-Qin literature, see Du Zhengsheng, "Xingti, jingqi yu hun po-zhongguo chuantong dui ren de renshi de xingcheng" (, - The Body, Essential qi and the Soul: the formation of the understanding of humanity in traditional China), Xin shi xue, 2.3 (1991), 1-65, at 36-45.
63. Buddhism expressly opposed the Hindu idea of "atman" or "true self " with its doctrine of "not-self " (an-attā in Pali, or an-ātman in Sanskrit), arguing that what one calls his or her self is none other than the aggregate of one body, feelings, perceptions, impulses and emotions, and acts of consciousness (the five "skandhas")
64. This is not to say that as a result of such philosophical and medical developments the idea of an immortal soul disappeared in China altogether. On the contrary, it not only continued to thrive in the popular milieu but some remnants of it managed to survive in the otherwise relentlessly atheistic Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. The Neo- Confucian philosophers categorically liquidated spiritual beings and argued explicitly that the hun and po of a person would disperse at the moment of death, the hun rejoining the yang qi in heaven and the po returning to the yin qi in the earth; however, in order to give meaning to the ancestral rites that was of central importance to the Confucian social and moral order, they conceded that at the moment when the living descendants gather to make sacrificial offerings to their ancestors, as they purified their bodies through fasting and united their minds in sincere worship, their qi would become clear and strong; and being [genetically] similar to that of their ancestors, it would be able to attract all the scattered qi that once constituted their ancestors hun and po, allowing the latter to temporarily reintegrate and appear at the ceremony to receive the sacrifices. For discussions on the conception of soul in early Chinese thought, see Yu Ying-shih. "O Soul, Come Back! A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China," Harvard Journal of Asiati Studies 47.2 (1987), 363-395.
65. K.E. Brashier, "Han Thanatology and the Division of Souls" Early China 21 (1996), 125-158.
66. On the ambiguity of Song Neo- Confucian philosophers views regarding this issue, see Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (The Pei-hsi tzu-i) by Chen Chun, 1159-1223, transl. by Wing-tsit Chan (New York, 1986), 150-151
67. Tian Hao (, Hoyt Cleveland Tillman), Zhu Xi de guishen guan yu daotong guan (Zhu Xi View on Spirits and Ghosts and his Idea of the Authentic Transmission of the Dao), in Zhu, Jieren ed, Mairu 21 shiji de zhu zi xue, 171-183.
68. Mencius remarked that "that whereby man differs from birds and beasts is but lit tle" (4B/19), and so "if you seek it, you will find it; but if you neglect it, you will lose it" (6A/6)
69. For Mencius view of Sagehood, see Mencius 6A/7. For his discussion on the spiritual dimension of self-cultivation, see Mencius, 7A/1.
70. I have discussed the Jesuit efforts to reinterpret and redefine the Chinese concept of qi in my paper, "Demystifying Qi: The Politics of Cultural Translation and Interpretation in the Early Jesuit Mission to China," in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation, ed. Lydia Liu (Durham, 1999), 74-106.
71. Aleni, Xingxue chushu (An Outline for the Study of [Human] Nature, reprinted by Shanghai Cimutang, 1873), juan 1, 5a-6a.
72. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 25-26.
73. The italicized portion is a quote from Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 6, 10b-11a.
74. In fact they stressed just the opposite-that human beings have only a single mind, rather than a moral mind plus a human mind each constantly fighting to overpower the other. For example, Zhu Xi says that "the mind is just one. It is not that a person takes one mind of his to control the other." Similarly, Lu Xiangshan says: "Human beings have only one mind of senses and feelings, not two. The difference between [the human mind and moral mind] is where it comes from. When hungry, one desires food, and when thirsty, one desires drinks. This comes from the human mind. As [for the decision to] eat what is proper for one to eat and drink what is proper for one to drink, this comes from the moral mind." Chen Menglei et al, eds, Qinding gujin tushu jicheng (Imperial Compendium of Literature Ancient and Modern), juan 120 of Lixue huibian xue xing dian, section on "Xin xue" 120) (Taibei, 1977), 1166 and 1173, respectively.
75. Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 1, 2a-2b.
76. Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 1,Ibid, 2b.
77. Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 1, 8a-11a.
78. For the medieval and Renaissance European debate on the unity or plurality of the human soul, see Daniel A. Callus, "The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form," In The Thomist, 24 (1961), 257-285;
79. Sascha Salatowsky, De Anima: Die Rezeption der aristotelischen Psychologie im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2006), 159-172;
80. and Emily Michael, "Renaissance Theories of Body, Soul, and Mind," in John P. Wright and Paul Potter, eds, Psyche and Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment (Oxford, 2000), 147-172.
81. I wish to thank one of the anonymous referees of this article for offering the above references and for prodding me to explore the possible link between Wang Honghan split model of mind and the European pluralist positions introduced or refuted by the China missionaries.
82. Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 2, 15b-16a.
83. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 43 and 53;
84. Raimundo del Valle, Xingshen shiyi ( The True Meaning of the Body and the Spirit, 1673), juan 1, 4b-6a.
85. I have examined the copy of this latter work held at Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu, Jap/Sin I 117 (1-2). I would like to acknowledge Zhu Pingyi, "Tonguan tianxue, yixue yu ruxue," 174, n. 18, which directed my attention to Raimundo del Valle text as a source for Wang Honghan discussion of the development of human embryos.
86. Del Valle, Xingshen shiyi, juan 1, 2a-3b. Emphasis added.
87. Wang Honghan, Gujin yishi, 322. Emphasis mine.
88. Wang Honghan, Sizhen mojian daquan, juan 1, 157. Emphasis mine.
89. For an in-depth inquiry into the intellectual and emotional lives of the early Chinese Catholics who struggled to resolve the profound moral dilemmas and cultural conflicts that they had to face on a daily basis, see Huang Yinong Liangtou she: mingmo qingchu diyi dai tianzhu jiaotu Double- Headed Snake: The First Generation of Catholics in the Late Ming and Early Qing (Taibei, 2005).
90. According to Du Zhengsheng, the modern Chinese usage of xin to designate both the heart and mind can be traced back to as early as the Oracle Bone and Bronze Inscriptions. See his "Xingti, jingqi yu hunpo," at 5-6
91. See, for example, chs. 9 and 23 of Huandi neijing-Suwen.
92. Zhu Xi, "Xuexuan dushu lu," in Chen Menglei et al, eds, Qinding gujin tushu jicheng, juan 120 of Lixue huibian xuexing dian, 593.
93. Also: "For all things that have a heart, their hearts must be hollow inside. Such are the chicken hearts and pork hearts in our food. Once you cut them open you see the hollow spaces inside. The human heart must be the same. In these hollows are contained many ideas and principles. Taking in Heaven and Earth, the past and present, and extending [what is known] to what is unknown, it encompasses all there is under Heaven. .. The heart is the chamber of the spirit and the commander of the body, and xing (Nature) is the many principles that are acquired from Heaven but stored in the heart." Ibid, 1167.
94. Huandi neijing- Suwen;ch. 11
95. Huandi neijing-Lingshu, ch. 33; and Porkert.
96. Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine, 111-112; 162-63.
97. The first author to raise serious doubts on this view of the brain was Wang Qingren (1768-1831), Yilin gaicuo (, Correcting Errors in the Jungle of Medicine, 1830). Regarding the significance of Wang Qingren work, see Bridie Andrew, "Wang Qingren and the History of Chinese Anatomy." Journal of Chinese Medicine, 36 (1991), 30-36.
98. and Wang Daohuan, "Lun yilin gaicuo de jiepoxue-jian lun jiepoxue zai zhongxi yixue chuantong zhong de diwei (, On the Anatomy in Yilin gaicuo, with a Subsidiary Discussion on the Role of Anatomy in Chinese and Western Medical Traditions," Xin shixue, 6.1 (1995), 95-112.
99. See, for example, Aristotle, Parts of Animals, III, iv, 665 b10ff, and vii, 670a23ff.
100. N. Standaert has said of Renshen tusuo that "it was not certain whether there was ever a printed version of this text," as it has survived only in manuscript copies. Standaert, "A Chinese Translation of Ambroise Paré Anatomy," 12. For some references to recent studies on Taixi renshen shuogai, translated by Johann Terrenz Schreck (1576-1630) and embellished by Bi Gongchen, see Standaert, ibid, n. 7. For a thematic summary and discussion of the Western knowledge of human physiology that was introduced to China during the late Ming and early Qing, see Zhu Pingyi, "Linghun, shenti yu tianzhu: Mingmo qingchu xixue zhong de renti shengli zhishi" (The Flesh, the Soul and the Lord: Jesuit Discourse of the Body in Seventeenth-Century China), Xin shixue, 7.2 (1996), 47-98.
101. For an overview of late medieval and early modern European developments in human anatomy, see Roger French, "The Anatomical Tradition," in W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter, eds, Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, vol.1 (London & New York, 1993), 81-101;
102. for a provocative interpretation of Renaissance anatomy in relation to Aristotelian anatomy, see Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients (Brookfield, VT, 1997).
103. Aleni, Xingxue chushu, juan 3, 2a
104. Adam Schall gives a similar account in Zhuzhi qunzheng, in Wu Xiangxiang (ed.).
105. Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian ( Second Collection of Documents on the Spread of Catholicism in the East) (Taibei, 1966), 2: 524.
106. Raimundo del Valle, Xingshen shiyi, juan 2, 2a-3a.
107. This passage gives a very detailed description of the lesser circulation as well as a general idea that the venous blood from all over the body returns to the heart. However, the physiology of the heart underlying his narrative remained Galenic on two key points: that the heart is the producer of vital spirits and source of primary heat.
108. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 110.
109. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 307. In traditional measurement, 16 liang is equal to 1 jin, and 1 jin equals to half a kilogram; 1 sheng equals to 0.22 gallon.
110. These two organs are shown together because, according to the theory of correspondence in Chinese medicine, the heart (a zang organ) is correlated with the small intestine (a fu organ). This image is reproduced from juan 3 of Zangfu zhengzhi tusuo renjing jingwhich was attributed to
111. Bian Que (a possibly ledendary physician believed to have lived in the third century BCE or earlier) but compiled and edited by Zhang Junying in 1640. Reprinted in Gugong zhenben congkan (Haikou, 2000), 24.
112. Paul Unschuld reproduced both types of illustrations in his Medicine in China: Historical Artifacts and Images (Munich, 2000). Type I appears on p. 34, reproduced from an undated manuscript; and type II appears as part of the semi-transparent morphological representations of the internal organs, reproduced from sources dated to the nineteenth century and earlier (on pp. 137 and 140).
113. Tang Xiangqing, Nanjing jinshi (Modern Interpretations of the Classic of Difficult Issues) (Taibei, 1974), 165.
114. Paul Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Berkeley, 1985), 85.
115. After I gave this paper at the Ricci Institute conference a member in the audience Dr. Collin P. Quock a cardiologist and clinical professor of medicine at the Medical School of the University of San Francisco suggested the following interpretation of the "seven holes" to me: they "may refer to the hollow tubes of the superior and the inferior venae cavae (2) coming into the cavity of the right atrium (3) which then leads into the cavity of the right ventricle (4). The blood leaves the right ventricle via the pulmonary artery, goes through the lungs, exchanges carbon dioxide for oxygen, andcomes back through the pulmonary veins into the cavity of the left atrium (5) and then the cavity of the left ventricle (6) and then out the hollow cavity of the aorta (7). That makes seven, omitting the pulmonary veins. Each cavity would be a hole." (Personal Letter to the Author, March 20, 2007) .Barring the modern terminology used here, could it be at all possible that the claim made in the Nanjing and later medical texts about the heart had some basis in actual anatomical observations along these lines I hope that other historians of Chinese medicine will be able to help me unravel this mystery. As for the "three hairs," Paul Unschuld notes in his translation and study of Nanjing that the "origin and meaning of this concept of hairs on the heart are unknown."
116. Unschuld, Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, with Commentaries by Chinese and Japanese Authors from the Third through the Twentieth Century (Berkeley, 1986), 423, n.3.
117. Wang Honghan Sizhen mai jian daquan
118. referred to the "hairs" not only inside the heart (181), but also in the liver (182). They apparently were supposed to have very important physiological functions, because as he noted, in both references, that "the hair breaks, and the person dies." Sizhen mai jian daquan, 181-182
119. Yamada Keiji, "Anatometrics in Ancient China," Chinese Science, 10 (1991), 39- 52.
120. It may be argued that human dissection performed for anatomical knowledge must certainly have taken place before this one. According to the historian Gu Jiegang, during the Spring and Autumn (722-481 BCE) and especially the Warring States period, more and more stories began to appear in various types of literature telling how the last King of the Shang dynasty (1600-1050 BCE), Zhou, ordered the killing of his minister Bigan, to check whether his heart indeed had seven holes, and the killing of a pregnant woman to examine the form of the fetus. The appearance of such [perhaps false] accusations of the infamous King Zhou during this period indicate that at least by this time people had a great interest in the anatomical body. See Gu Jiegang, "Zhou e qishi shi de fasheng cidi" (The Historical Sequence of the Seventy Evils Attributed to Zhou) in Gu Jiegang lunwen ji (Collections of Essays on Ancient History by Gu Jiegang), vol.2 (Beijing, 1988), 211-221.
121. An account of the killing of Bigan is given by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian (145-c. 85 BCE), who says: "[King] Zhou became ever more licentious and undisciplined. Weizi admonished him repeatedly, but the King ignored him, so after consulting with the Senior and Junior Masters, he departed. Bigan said: As a minister, I will have to fight to the last ditch [to have things rectified]. Therefore, he reprimanded the King fearlessly. Infuriated by this, King Zhousaid: I heard that sages have hearts with seven holes. Then he had Bigan [killed and his chest] cut open to inspect his heart." Sima Qian, Shiji, juan 3, "Records of Yin " (repr. ed,Hong Kong, 1978), 1: 108.
122. For further discussions on the history of human dissection in China, see Wang Daohuan, "Lun Yilin gaicuo de jiepo xue," 99;
123. Yamada Keiji, "Anatometrics in Ancient China"; and Despeux, "Visual Representations of the Body," 24-27.
124. "Zangfu quantu shuo (An Account of the Complete Images of the zang and fu Organs)
125. in Zhang Huang, Tushu bian (, Compilations of Books and Illustrations, 1613 ed, juan 68, reprinted by Chengwen chubanshe, 1971), 19: 7942-44, at 43-44.
126. The Chinese text of this account along with an English translation is included in Paul U. Unschuld, Introductory Readings in Classical Chinese Medicine (Dordrecht, 1988), 71-76. This quotation is adapted from Unschuld translation at 76.
127. Li Jiong, Huangdi bashiyi nanjing zuantu jujie (Illustrations and Commentaries on the Yellow Emperor Classic of Eighty-one Difficult Issues, 1269), Zhengtong daozang edition, in Zhuzi jicheng bubian (Chengdu, 1997), 4:754
128. See also a similar remark made by the Ming Dynasty commentator Zhang Shixian (fl. 1506-1521) in his Tuzhu bashiyi nanjing (Illustrated Commentary on the Nanjing) (reprinted by Jinzhang tushuju, n.d.), juan 3, 3a.
129. "Qikong duo conghui, sanmao shang zhiying." Zhang Huang, Tushu bian, juan 69. Chengwen chubanshe reprint. ed, 19: 7946.
130. "Seven Stars" (qixin) refers to the stars of the dipper, part of the constellation of Ursa Major, and "Three terraces" ( santai) to the six stars in the same constellation.
131. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 309.
132. For example, Huangdi neijing-Lingshu, ch. 47, has this to say about the correspondence between a person zang organs and his personal character: "Those whose five zang are all small are less prone to illnesses but tend to suffer from anxiety and melancholy, whereas those whose five zang are all large act slowly and are not bothered by worry. Those whose five zang are all tall tend to take lofty actions, whereas those whose five zang are all low tend to behave lowly. Those whose five zang are all upright can establish harmony with others and obtain support, whereas those whose five zang are all skewed often harbor devious intentions and are good at theft; they are not able to treat people with fairness or live up to their own promises."
133. Indeed, the Chinese still use the phrase "yiqiao butong" (literally "not a single hole is through") to describe someone who is mentally very slow or not knowledgeable.
134. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 309-310;
135. Aleni, Xingue cushu, juan 8, 17b, 18b;
136. Raimundo del Valle, Xingshen shiyi, juan 2, 2a.
137. Wang Honghan, Yixue yuanshi, 310-311