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The Territory Between Life and Death Medical History, 2003, 47: 250-258 Essay Review The Territory between Life and Death VIVIENNE LO MhWiS* Li Jianmin, A RG Sisheng zhi yu N LA (The Territory between Life and Death), Taibei, Academia Sinica, 2000, revised in 2001, 435 pages incl. illustrations (fine binding edition, ISBN 957-671-703-5; ordinary edition 957-671-704-3). Li Jianmin's richly illustrated book is the "Immortals" in a section of the first monograph wholly devoted to mai R-R, bibliographical treatise of A (History of which he identifies as the most fundamental the Former Han) that catalogues an eclectic unit of the body for early Chinese medical selection of technical and medical arts, theorists, and a primary measure for its known asfangji )tAIk (remedies and skills).' health. Questions concerning how the The relevant sentence reads: "protect the concept of mai emerge in historical and genuine in life and roam around searching technical literature have important for what is outside of it ... equalize the implications for our understanding of the territory between life and death" (emphasis development of classical Chinese theories of mine).2 Here are books on the physiology of health and acupuncture theory and practice. the body, its xue &i (blood) and mai )L, Sisheng zhi yu R L A is a seminal which are also aimed at clarifying work which draws together some 1,500 distinctions between life and death and the primary and secondary sources that bear roots of all illness. upon our understanding of mai at a critical The underlying argument of Li's book is phase in the late Warring States and early that the mai themselves are the technical imperial period (irca fourth to second ground that form that "territory between century BCE); for the first time Li Jianmin life and death", and through which gives a three-dimensional account of the immortality might seem a tangible goal. The complex arts and technical culture within pursuit of immortality in early China took which the concept first developed, and with many forms, some of which are documented which it is inseparably intertwined. Thus the in the Hanshu bibliography: from massage task of this review article is to summarize and therapeutic movement to alchemy, sex his findings for those who do not have and drug-taking, all in varying degrees access to new trends in Chinese scholarship. constituted paths to long life, and the His title is taken from the entry for avoidance of decay. * Vivienne Lo, The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London. 'Hanshu iM (History of the Former Han, compiled 58-76 CE) juan 30, Ban Gu *EIRI I am very grateful to Lois Reynolds for her (32-92), Beijing, Zhonghua, 1996, pp. 1701-1780. editorial expertise. 2Ibid., p. 1779. 250 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 28 Sep 2021 at 21:48:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300056751 Review In the last decade, Maixue 1Je (the environments could be judged. What Li study of the mai) has fascinated historians adds to the field is a close examination of of early Chinese medicine. Some translate how, when and where that body was mai as "vessel", others "channel", constructed. He reassesses assumptions sometimes "pulse". But when mai comes about periodicity; finds geographical fused, as it often is, with other Chinese variation in the interpretation of the mai, as terms the problems multiply. Jingmai £NI, well as three different stages of development together with jingluo ., fundamental differentiated by the influence of theories concepts common in the canonical treatises about the movement of heavenly bodies, the of Chinese acupuncture theory, Huangdi priorities of early Chinese forms of self- neijing ** Fs (the Yellow Emperor's cultivation and the development of a Inner Canon), have been translated numerological body with which one could "conduit", "meridian", "circulation tract" calculate physiological movement and and "vessel" as well. Then there are the circulation. dongmai Oft, literally the "moving" mai, Maixue is not a new field, and Li's study not to be too closely associated with the is one of the latest in a long tradition of "pulses" of Western medicine, and finally scholarship, including a substantial pre- xuemai IfiiJ1J (blood mai) or baimai -.)11i modem corpus of critical study. The earliest (one hundred mai), which more simply refer may even date to Nanjing N (Canon of to the "blood vessels". Yet the divisions of Difficulties), an innovative and structure and function differentiated in the systematizing circa second-century Chinese English renderings of mai as "vessel" and work, written to elucidate many of the "6pulse" may be an artefact of problems and inconsistencies that existed in translation-of the inseparable development the Huangdi corpus.4 The latter body of of anatomy and theory of blood circulation writings comprises several compilations of in the Western medical traditions and the small texts dealing with separate topics, challenge has been to give a positive which may reflect the thinking in a distinct account of the mai.3 Li Jianmin has now medical lineage. It is now thought by most gone a long way towards meeting that European and American scholars that the challenge. texts were set down at the earliest in the It is commonplace understanding that the second century BCE, but possibly in the first acupuncture body is a microcosm of the centuries CE. Collectively, they represent the known universe, a metaphor for structures kind of debate through which classical that early Chinese found in Heaven and medical concepts matured. Earth. In Li's words the mai are "a field of Scholars working in the last century have temporal spaces" that act as a pivot of tended to imagine a collective accumulation many different worlds; at once analogous to of knowledge about the body developing the rivers of China, to astronomical into an empirically-based medical system. movements, to rivers of blood and channels For example, in Celestial lancets Lu and of communication, patterns against which Needham imagine a golden age of human disharmony with different "empirical" medical activity at the 3Shigehisa Kuriyama, 'Varieties of haptic Huangdi neijing suwen * IsW.irI and experience: a comparative study of Greek and Huangdi neijing taisu *tPi;k* are Chinese pulse diagnosis', PhD diss., Harvard generally considered to contain the core theory University, 1986, pp. 58-100. of traditional Chinese medicine. Nathan Sivin, 'Paul Unschuld, Nan-Ching: the classic of 'Huang ti nei ching', in Michael Loewe (ed.), difficult issues, Berkeley, University of Early Chinese texts: a bibliographical guide, California Press, 1986. The combined treatises Berkeley, SSEC and IEAS, University of of the Huangdi neiing lingshu **AJg,949, California, 1993, pp. 196-215. 251 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 28 Sep 2021 at 21:48:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300056751 Essay Review foundation of classical theory, a scientific wuxing HIT (five phases), the "turtle and spirit that was ultimately stifled after the milfoil", physiognomy, the determination of Tang period (618-907) when "abstraction auspicious times and places, as well as types trampled over empiricism" in the hands of of exorcism, omenology, etc.7 Once those more learned in astrological associated with the numerological sequences calculation than practical medicine.' A of shushu calculation, the routes and cherished view was that the replacement of channels around the body defined as mai bian E (stone lancets) and other crude open out into Li's "field of temporal stone implements with finely drawn metal spaces": each of the mai has designations needles was the catalyst that stimulated a relating Yin and Yang (Great Yin mai, new age of medical sophistication.6 Li Great Yang mai, Lesser Yin mai, etc.), Jianmin and others represent a growing terms that can refer to the dark and sunny number of scholars who prefer not to aspects of a mountain, but equally describe emphasize continuities in Chinese the phases of the sun and moon-thus technological culture and favour a creating the essential spatio-temporal differentiation of the historical layering of framework for the body to become a vessel medical knowledge and experience. There is for circulating qi and blood. now considerable doubt about the narrative Where Lu and Needham refer to a of "trial and error" in the discovery of "characteristic noise or redundance", which acupuncture channels and loci, and it has always accompanies the growth of become a matter of academic rigour to find systematic classifications in all cultures, new ways of re-framing the essential more recently historians tend to concentrate questions. their attention on the elements of medical The core of Li's thesis is that the practice that did not succeed in becoming development of mai was motivated by the part of a canonized tradition. Li Jianmin is pervasive culture of shushu OM (literally, at the forefront of research into lost numbers techniques), the art of traditions of the late Warring States and "calculation". Shushu is a peculiarly Chinese early imperial medical cultures and the notion of "numbers" used in the doctors and diviners that worked with their computation of "celestial patterns" at the theories. He is well known for his work on foundation of the astro-calendrical the early literature on remedies, on human traditions. Different forms of shushu culture dissection as spectacle, and the history of pervade all aspects of life in early China, the occult arts, such as seduction, or ideas and in Han times embrace types of of contagion through demonic influences.8 divination using Yinyang MM and the His work follows in the wake of those 5Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham, (Demonic Illnesses and 'Place': One Celestial lancets, Cambridge University Press, Explanation of Family Medical Attitudes to 1980, p.
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