1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910778169603321

Autore

Barnes Linda L

Titolo

Needles, herbs, gods, and ghosts [[electronic resource] ] : China, healing, and the West to 1848 / / Linda L. Barnes

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, MA, : Harvard University Press, 2005

ISBN

0-674-26191-7

0-674-02054-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (480 p. ) : ill

Disciplina

610.951

Soggetti

Medicine, Chinese

Medicine - Asia - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Originally published: 2005.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographcial references (p. 374-436) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1. First Impressions: Until 1491 -- CHAPTER 2. A New Wave of Europeans: 1492-1659 -- CHAPTER 3. Model State, Medical Men, and "Mechanick Principles": 1660-1736 -- CHAPTER 4. Sinophiles, Sinophobes, and the Cult of Chinoiserie: 1737-1804 -- CHAPTER 5. Memory, History, and Imagination: 1805-1848 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

When did the West discover Chinese healing traditions? Most people might point to the "rediscovery" of Chinese acupuncture in the 1970's. In Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts, Linda Barnes leads us back, instead, to the thirteenth century to uncover the story of the West's earliest known encounters with Chinese understandings of illness and healing. A medical anthropologist with a degree in comparative religion, Barnes illuminates the way constructions of medicine, religion, race, and the body informed Westerners' understanding of the Chinese and their healing traditions.