Medical Practice in China During the Twelfth Century - Revisiting the Way and the Word Hypothesis

This paper critically examines the medical encounter in China during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While the medical encounter between a doctor and a patient is central to medicine, there are many aspects of the history of this encounter that remain hidden from view. In this paper, I use case records, case studies, and even visual depictions to reconstruct the clinical scene in Song-dynasty China. I will predominantly use one physician's collection of medical case records - that by Xu Shuwei (Chinese Text) (1080-1154). I also use medical cases recorded from other medical and non-medical primary sources. I discuss how physicians reached their diagnoses and implemented treatment within a complex social context. I also revisit the thesis put forward by Lloyd and Sivin's in their 2002 book about the dynamics of the medical encounter suggesting that argument and debate became central in determining the pathology of the patient, probably due to the growing access to printed medical literature after the eleventh century.