Preparation of a catalogue with a preliminary portrayal of the contents of ca. 100 handwritten volumes with medical contents of the 18th through the early 20th century from China.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Paul Ulrich Unschuld
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Asian Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244864085

In an earlier project funded by DFG, 881 handwritten volumes with medical contents of the 16th through mid-20th century from China, held by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and Ethnology Museum Berlin-Dahlem, have been described in detail. The availability of these texts has broadened the realm of primary sources for research on historical Chinese therapeutic concepts and practice in an unprecedented way. For many decades, historians of Chinese medicine have almost exclusively focused on printed Chinese texts. Their contents, though, are limited through various ethical, ideological, and also financial constraints. In contrast, most of the handwritten texts have been written for personal use only, not for publication. Here one finds documented numerous aspects of health care knowledge and practice that are absent from printed literature. These include ethical issues such as abortion, discussions of how to best make money (including cheating patients), therapies long-lost in printed literature, and others more. The authors of these texts include private households and lay practitioners, itinerant and folk healers and professionally trained physicians, pharmacists and magicians, students and others. The data included in these handwritten volumes permit a much more encompassing and realistic image of pre-modern Chinese health care delivery than printed literature could offer. The survey of contents of the 881 volumes following the conclusion of the earlier project was published by Paul U. Unschuld and ZHENG Jinsheng under the title: Chinese Traditional Healing. The Berlin Collections of Manuscript Volumes from the 16th through the early 20th Century. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012, in three volumes totaling more than 2.800 pages. This set of volumes has stimulated a wide interest in these sources. Request for digitalized copies have been received in increasing numbers by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin following publication of the Brill volumes. With the cataloguing and preliminary portrayal of the contents of the remaining 100 volumes the complete set of handwritten volumes held in Berlin will be opened for further research.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants