SKU: 71875311788

Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626 to 2006

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Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626 to 2006In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with

In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with which it merged over time to form the “current of Menghe learning” (Menghe xuepai). 

This current and its offshoots produced some of the most influential physicians in the Chinese medical tradition during the 19th and 20th centuries. Menghe physicians, their disciples and students treated emperors, imperial mandarins, Nationalist Party generals, leading figures in the Communist Party, affluent businessmen, and influential artists.

In late imperial China, Menghe medicine was a self-conscious attempt to unite diverse strands of medical learning into one integrated tradition centered on ancient principles of practice. In Republican Shanghai, Menghe physicians and their students were at the forefront of medical modernization, establishing schools, professional associations, and journals that became models for others to follow. During the 1950s and 1960s, the heirs of Menghe medicine were key players in creating the institutional framework for contemporary Chinese medicine. Their students are now practicing all over the world, shaping Chinese medicine in Los Angeles, New York, Oxford, Mallorca, and Berlin.

The history of the Menghe current is relevant to anyone interested in the development of Chinese medicine in late imperial and modern China. This book traces Chinese medical history along the currents created by generations of physicians linked to each other by a shared heritage of learning, by descent and kinship, by sentiments of native place as well as nationalist fervor, by personal rivalries and economic competition, by the struggle for the survival of tradition and glorious visions of a new global medicine.

On the level of both theory and practice, this history marks a departure from the focus on texts and ideas that has dominated Western engagement with Chinese medicine to date. Its goal is to locate medicine within the concrete lives of physicians and their patients, restoring an agency to their actions that easily gets lost in our search for the forces or structures that shape historical process. To this end, the author interweaves social history and medical case studies, ethnography and biography to narrate a story of Chinese medicine that is very different from any that has been told before.

Read an excerpt (PDF)

Contents

Part 1 Late Imperial China

  • Economy and Society in Late Imperial China: Jiangnan, Wujin, and Menghe 
  • The Scholarly Medical Tradition in Late Imperial China: Origins, Problems, and New Departures 
  • The Origins of Menghe Medicine 
  • The Flourishing of Menghe Medicine 
  • Medical Lineages and Master Disciple Networks: The Eastward Spread of Menghe Medicine 
  • Fei Boxiong and the Menghe Medical Style

Part 2 Republican China

  • Chinese Medicine in Shanghai: Native Place and the 
  • The Modernization of Chinese Medicine in Republican China: From Medical Reform to Medical Revolution 
  • The Birth of the Menghe Current: Ding Ganren and the Transformation of Chinese Medicine in Republican Shanghai 
  • From Shanghai to New York: Ding Family Medicine after Ding Ganren 
  • The Development of Ding Family Medicine: Clinical Efficacy and Personal Identity

Part 3 Contemporary China

  • Chinese Medicine in Maoist and Post-Maoist China: The Institutionalization of Tradition and Its Discontents 
  • Inheriting and Developing Tradition: Three Exemplary Biographies 
  • Wujin Medicine Remembered: Tradition and the Labor of Social Memory

Reviews

"A superb study that speaks both to medical historians and anthropologists, and to the increasingly globalized communities of contemporary practitioners of Chinese medicine. Scheid’s work is unique in integrating a subtle understanding of historical multiplicity with insights based on his own clinical experience."
—Charlotte Furth, Professor of Chinese History, University of Southern California

"At the beginning of this astonishing book, Volker Scheid raises the most fundamental, most daunting questions in medical history: First, what is a medical tradition? What makes us see stable structures in a world where the only constant rule is change? What maintains them in a society where medicine was not an organized profession? What gives birth to such a tradition? How does it die? . . . Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine grapples on every page with these practically unexamined questions, and develops as convincing a set of answers as we are likely to have for a long time."
—From the Foreword by Nathan Sivin, Professor of Chinese Culture and the History of Science, University of Pennsylvania

"Combines sophisticated arguments about social processes and processes of remembering with the specific histories of individual physicians and their colleagues, patients, aspirations, and clinical styles. . . . Historians, anthropologists, practitioners and patients will all find gems that please them in this remarkable new contribution to the field."
—Marta Hanson, Assistant Professor, Department of History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

"This book fills an important gap. There are few works available on the history of Chinese medicine, the development of the Chinese medical tradition and the transmission of medical knowledge in China. It is an essential point of reference for any practitioner of Chinese medicine who wants to reach beyond the narrow circle of knowledge acquired in the course of gaining a professional qualification, and who wants at least to try to connect with his or her ‘ancestors.’ It is also relevant because it reveals the fragility of the Chinese medical tradition, something we might not have suspected or thought about. It is as fragile as memory itself. And thus we have the responsibility of keeping it alive."
—Olga Fedina, European Journal of Oriental Medicine

"Those interested in the history of the multifaceted tradition of Chinese medicine will find this an intriguing look behind the veil of current orthodoxy to a practice where, for example, self-cultivation could form the basis for clinical efficacy. An inspiring book."
—Steve Clavey, author, Fluid Physiology and Pathology in Traditional Chinese Medicine

"As a student of Qin Bowei, and therefore part of the Menghe tradition myself, I wholeheartedly recommend this text as an introduction to the depth of the Chinese medical tradition."
—Wu Boping, Professor, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences

"Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine is essential reading for anyone seeking a nuanced understanding of Chinese medicine and the social dynamics that have shaped it over time."
—Yi-Li Wu, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

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SKU: 71875311788

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Shianne Whipple
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 5
Strong Omegaverse Comfort and a Attention Grabbing Plot
Format: Kindle
Jillian West never misses when it comes to Omegaverse, and Not Ready is no exception. This story was the perfect blend of cozy comfort and emotional depth while still delivering a strong plot. Vale is such a powerful heroine, she is strong, capable, and determined but I love that she still allows her pack to love and take care of her. It’s that balance of independence and vulnerability that makes her so relatable. The relationship dynamics were amazing: Bishop is steadfast and completely head over heels, Mercy is skeptical but protective in his own way, and Holt is the hesitant one whose slow fall is so satisfying to watch unfold. The romance hits that sweet spot between insta-love and cautious build, keeping me hooked the entire way through. And that ending. Oh my god, the cliffhanger! I need the next book in this duet immediately.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2025
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NLB
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Interesting
Format: Kindle
So I will say I enjoyed the story, for sure had its moments where it dragged but it was a great story. I really liked that omegas picked their alphas/make the pack. Normally the Alphas make it and the omega fits in with them which is great but I enjoyed this new version where all the power basically went to the omega. It was a nice change of pace. I can admit some of the weird bedroom stuff with her being pregnant was odd, it’s really not hard to do stuff when pregnant (I know I’ve had two and it’s normal and even encouraged at the end especially if you want the baby out). But I like the story as a whole and will read the second, I do hope the next one isn’t dragged bc it stopped being action or tense after she met her alphas and I don’t think it was brought up or properly done when they tried to do it. More sweet after she left.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2024
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Altairjones
Pawtucket, US
★★★★★ 3
I’m a little disappointed.
Format: Kindle
I usually like Jillian West’s books but this one was missing a lot for me. The pregnancy didn’t come across as real. She’s on her feet for 12 hour days but is perfectly healthy at 8 months pregnant? Yet the week she moves in all of a sudden she’s not? She is planning on actually running during one of the plot buildups. But at 8 months pregnant that’s incredibly hard to do. The lack of breathing ability and lung space, the change in body center, mass, and gravity. All of it prohibits running, unless you’re an athlete this didn’t come off as at all realistic. I didn’t feel any connection with the alphas. There wasn’t any emotional connection. It could be because of the tense it was written in. But I didn’t get any deep feelings out of this. It came across as checking off boxes. Even the spicy scenes weren’t really believable for me. I wanted to see them fall for her, and it just kind of all fizzled. Even Bishop. One thing I did really like was the ending. I did not see it coming and I’m interested in reading book two because of it. But on the whole this book was mostly disappointing for me.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2024
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Melissa Williams
Boise, US
★★★★★ 4
4.25 stars
Format: Kindle
Vale is an 8 month pregnant omega working as a waitress at a strip club and a cam girl. She starts to get very creepy vibes from a regular at the club, and her baby daddy ghosted her. She has had an online relationship with a man named Bishop through her cam girl status. One night, bishop was paying to watch her sleep and ansthe creepy regular Andrew break in and watch her sleep he tells vale to come to him at his business now. She flees and finds herself at a large security company with some.hot of alphas who are there to help her. This imegaverse is a little different than I have read, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. Vale is not a traditional omega she was raised by a single beta mom, and the alphas are not normal alphas they have never really loved pack life. But they are ruthless mercenaries. They need her, and she needs them. I love the aspect of the stalker and now the plot twists at the end, so so good. Sometimes, it seemed a little slow and stale mated, but since this a duet, I think It was just her starting to have Vale get to know her alpha suitors. Cliffhanger for sure with this one.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2024
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Austin & Cambria
Boise, US
★★★★★ 5
That ending 😫
Format: Kindle
I fell into a false sense of security and really thought this was gearing towards a happy ending. Then I realized there’s no work they don’t punish Andrew. I really liked Vale’s character. I don’t normally read books with pregnancy but going into this knowing she was pregnant made it more enjoyable for me. I loved Bishops devotion to her and her happiness. I also loved that Holt and Mercy couldn’t fight their attraction to her. I love scent matches so very much. I’m so curious to see how this duet will end up. And I need to pay more attention and notice that a book I’m starting is a duet to begin with lol
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Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2025

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