The Transmission Of BenCaoGangMu In Europe

In the era of globalization,the promotion of human health depends on the combination of multiple medical systems.However,cross-cultural communication between Chinese and Western medicine,especially the spread of Chinese medicine to the west,often face obstacles from political,economic,and cultural factors.In this context,tracing back the history of cross-cultural communication between Chinese and Western medicine and digging out its influencing factors may provide some historical enlightenment for the related policy formulation and model construction of medical communication today.This thesis selects the history of the spread of BenCaoGangMu in Europe as the research object,because the book is widely circulated in Europe and has been well received by European readers.BenCaoGangMu,also called Compendium of Materia Medica,which was a great work on Chinese herbal medicine compiled by Chinese doctor Li-Shizhen in Ming dynasty.It was engraved in 1593 and published in 1596.It was introduced to Japan in 1604 and then spread to European countries at the latest in the 17th century.BenCaoGangMu has been continuously translated,interpreted,classified,and reconstructed by European scholars in the whole 18th-19th century.When it came to the 20th century,BenCaoGangMu regained the attention of the world.For example,in 1953,Moscow State University embedded a portrait of Li-Shizhen on the wall of the university auditorium.In 2011,UNESCO included BenCaoGangMu in the Memory of the World Register.In 2018,which is the 500th anniversary of Li-Shizhen’s birthday and the 440th anniversary of BenCaoGangMu,scholars around the world organized a number of international academic conferences and activities to commemorate the contributions of Li-Shizhen to the world.This thesis described the process of the spread of BenCaoGangMu in Europe from the 17th century to the present.The European scholars’ collection,translation,citation,research,interpretation and evaluation of BenCaoGangMu were analyzed to provide some thinking and enlightenment for the medical cross-cultural communication between China and the West from the historical perspective.Three kinds of methods were used for data collection in this study.The materials related to BenCaoGangMu,such as monographs,papers,letters,manuscripts,policy documents,photos,albums,specimens,etc.were collected through consulting the catalogs,searching the Internet,and fieldwork.Literature research and historical research methods were mainly used in this study to help understand the dissemination process of BenCaoGangMu in Europe.Reception Theory was drawn on to explore the interpretation of BenCaoGangMu by European readers from the perspective of social.cultural and historical.The research framework of the Social History of Knowledge was used to explore in deeper the factors influencing reader’s interpretation,and the relationship of those factors.Firstly,this thesis introduced 22 editions of BenCaoGangMu collected by 17 libraries in 8 European countries,including three precious kinds of colorful herbal picture manuscripts.Secondly,this thesis analyzed 4 kinds of English and French translations of BenCaoGangMu,which were translated by Jacques Francois Vandermoade,Jean-Baptiste Du Halde,Bernard Emms Read and Luo Xi-wen.Thirdly,this thesis divides the reception history of BenCaoGangMu into three periods:introduction and translation period(17-18th century),resear-ch and evaluation period(19th century).and cultural impression construction period(20-21st century).In the 17th to 18th centuries,the main European readers of BenCaoGangMu were missionaries who came to China.They collected many versions of BenCaoGangMu and the related specimens of herb and mineral in China,and translated some of the content into English and French.In the 19th century,the readers of BenCaoGangMu were mainly scholars who tested the specimens,explained these Chinese medicines from the perspective of chemistry and pharmacology,and compared them with the plants that originally grew in Europe.Since the 20th century,the forms of European readers’ acceptance of BenCaoGangNu were tended to diversify.For example,Li-Shizhen and the Chinese herbal medicine cultural were shown to the world through sculptures and animations.In particular,BenCaoGangMu was selected into the the Memory of the World Register,which had a positive impact on the spread of traditional Chinese medicine culture to the world.In addition,this thesis clarifies three controversial issues in the current studies:First,the works of Michel Boym are not the translation of BenCaoGangMu,but he quoted the contents of "DanSha" and "LongGu" of BenCaoGangMu in his books.The second is that the PhD thesis of Abel Remusat did not take BenCaoGangMu as a research object.But when he was young.he probably saw the color pictures of BenCaoGangMu,which became his motivation for learning Chinese.The third is that Darwin quoted the contents of chickens and goldfish of BenCaoGangMu in his works,and he thought that BenCaoGangMu was an "An Ancient Chinese Encyclopaedia".Finally,from the perspective of the social history of knowledge,this thesis divides the process of spreading the knowledge of BenCaoGangMu into four stages:collection,analysis,dissemination,and application:Europeans collected BenCaoGangMu and the related pharmaceutical specimens through purchase,provision and plunder,and then they screened,translated,cited,and studied the medical and natural knowledge recorded in the BenCaoGangMu,and disseminated these knowledge to other European scholars through papers,works,letters,etc.They used these knowledge to Chinese research and clinical diagnosis and treatment.Regarding the innovation of this thesis,one is to add some new historical materials that have not been included in current studies,such as some precious colorful manuscripts of Chinese herbal medicine which were collected in the Bibliotheque centrale du Museum national d’histoire naturelle and Bibliotheque municipale de Dijon.The second is to to clarify some controversial issues in current studies,such as the translation,citation and research of BenCao GangMu by Michel Boym,Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat and Charles Robert Darwin.Finally,this thesis is innovation in research perspective and methodology by combinng the theories and methods of philology,history,sociology and literature.