The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School TAKEN
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School TAKEN FROM NATURE: SINO-BRITISH MEDICAL ENCOUNTERS IN THE EARLY MODERN PEIROD A Dissertation in History by Miaosi Zhang © 2020 Miaosi Zhang Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2020 The dissertation of Miaosi Zhang was reviewed and approved by the following: Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Kathlene Baldanza Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies Daniel Chapin Beaver Associate Professor in History and English Erica Fox Brindley Professor of Asian Studies, History, and Philosophy Michael Kulikowski Professor of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Head, Department of History ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the exchange of medicinal plants and medical practices between China and Britain in the early modern period. Using knowledge of materia medica such as tea, rhubarb, china root, and camphor as the entry point and drawing on archival and primary source materials collected in Britain and China and in Chinese and English, I show that scientific and medical research was inextricably bound up with commercial interests for the British Empire. Missionaries and explorers introduced China’s achievements in medicine and its practitioners’ rich knowledge in materia medica to European audience. The long-term trade routes led European merchants, physicians, and apothecaries into the global intellectual pursuit of medical botany. All of these contributed to competitive voices in creating, circulating, and consuming knowledge related to materia medica and medical practice from China. The appropriation of Chinese medicinal plants in early-modern England was forged through the creation of scholarly, commercial, and cultural discourses on the commodities. This particular mode of transmission was significant to understand the conflicts between the prerequisite knowledge through texts and the actual experience of consuming the commodities in the commodification of exotic remedies in early-modern England. The process also revealed that, learned physicians and domestic practitioners were equally crucial to the appropriation of exotic remedies. Learned physicians served as intermediaries between lay practitioners and exotic ingredients by accommodating these exotic herbs in through vernacular medical writings. Domestic practitioners, enforcing these remedies in daily life, made them part of early-modern English medical culture. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Ordering the Natural World: Construction of Western Intellectual Tradition of Chinese Herbal Medicine 19 Chapter 2. Trading Knowledge of botany and materia medica in eighteenth century 50 Chapter 3. The Hope of Health: British medical encounters with exotic practices and remedies 95 Chapter 4. Legitimating Tea Drinking in British culture 131 Conclusion 186 Bibliography 197 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Chinese fruit trees from Michael Boym 28 Figure 2: Collection of Chinese flora, including Rhubarb, ginseng, and tea. J. B. Du Halde, 1738. 34 Figure 3: Joseph-François Lafitau, American ginseng vs. Chinese ginseng, 1718. 46 Figure 4: Chinese or Turkish rhubarb (Rheum palmatum), c. 1842. 69 Figure 5: Frontispiece of Directions for bringing over seeds and plants from the East-Indies and other distant countries, in a state of vegetation, 1770. 80 Figure 6: Tea bush, Athanasius Kircher, China Illustrata, Amsterdam: 1667. 137 Figure 7: Frontispiece of An essay upon the nature and qualities of tea, 1705. 157 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my advisor, Prof. Ronnie Po- chia Hsia. Thank you for taking me under your supervision, for encouraging and guiding me through this journey. Prof. Hsia offered constructive criticisms and suggestions to direct the way of my work, which becomes the most precious rewarding of my intellectual path. Thank you for your patience, enthusiasm and invaluable advice throughout this process. I would like to express my gratefulness to Prof. Kathlene Baldanza, the meetings and conversations with you in the past a few years were so important in inspiring me to think outside the box. Thank you for being generous with your time in reading and commenting all my drafts chapters. I appreciate for your encouragement and providing information on conferences, workshops, and fellowships related to my research. I would also like to thank Prof. Dan Beaver and Prof. Erica Brindley for taking part in my dissertation committee, and for providing thoughtful advice and comments, and allowing me to think the broader picture of my research. I want to thank my fellow Ph.D. students for your support throughout the years. I thank my cohorts Mallory Huard, ShaVonte Mills, Christopher Valesey, Benjamin Herman, Cecily Zander, and Samantha Billing for your friendship and all the stimulating discussions. I thank Yanan Qizhi, Xiangyu Xu, Kwok-leong Tang, Hsin-fang Wu for your encouragement and support. I will not be able to finish this dissertation without the financial support of some institutions. Penn State’s History Department provided me with scholarships to conduct archival research in London and Guangzhou. The Center for Humanities and Information at Penn State granted me one-year of predoctoral fellowship, which allowed me to devote all my time in doing research and writing. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for always being there for me, for encouraging me and believing in me. I cannot imagine going through this journey without your love, kind words and support. Without my parents this moment would never have come. vi Introduction In 1769, John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815) completed his doctoral thesis concerning the natural history and medical properties of tea at the Leyden University. During his lifetime, Lettsom was a physician in London, but most of all, a keen botanist, who actively exchanged living plants and seeds with his contacts all over the world. Three years after his graduation from Leyden, Lettsom’s dissertation was published, entitled The Natural History of the Tea-tree: With Observations on the Medical Qualities of Tea, and Effects of Tea-drinking, which positioned him at the center of an intense, long-term debate over the medical and social effects of tea in the European world.1 Not only because he rectified Carl Linnaeus’s classification of tea as two distinct species, scientific investigations he conducted to prove virtues and deleterious effects of tea-drinking that had been debated by physicians since the late seventeenth century, but also he drew our attention to effects of tea-drinking on the British diet in general. At the end of this work, Lettsom concluded, “So far therefore tea, if not too fine, if not drank too hot, nor in too great quantities, is perhaps preferable to any other vegetable infusion we know. And if we take into consideration likewise, its known enlivening energy, it will appear that our attachment to tea, is not merely from its being costly or fashionable, but from it superiority in taste and effects to most other vegetables.”2 Lettsom’s conclusion signaled several medical and cultural effects of tea-drinking on British society in the eighteenth century. First of all, tea was promoted by some medical authorities as an herbal panacea. Medical writers repetitively described its countless curative virtues, including a wide range of ailments, such as colds, headaches, asthma, indigestion, and 1 Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, John Coakley Lettsom, Memoirs of the life and writings of the late John Coakley Lettsom: with a selection from his correspondence. London: 1817. Penelope Hunting, “Dr John Coakley Lettsom, Plant-Collector of Camberwell.” Garden History 34, no. 2 (2006): 221-35. 2 John Coakley Lettsom, The Natural History of the Tea-tree: With Observations on the Medical Qualities of Tea, and Effects of Tea-drinking, London: 1772. 50. 1 constipation. The second influence was the accommodation of tea in British alimentary structures, principally the ways to consume it and the general effect on the European diet and nature of meals. Thirdly, tea, along with several other exotic remedies, had specific effects that can substitute indigenous herbal remedies. Lettsom claimed that this beverage could serve as an alternative to other “vegetable infusions” with which Europeans were familiar. This dissertation examines the cultural encounters between China and Britain in the early modern period, specifically analyze the encounters of medical knowledge and natural history through scholarly, commercial, diplomatic activities. The early modern period witnessed a moment of booming cross-cultural contact and exchange, initiated by academic interests, commercial and colonial ambitions, resulted in the introduction of a large number of botanical commodities to the European world for commercial and medical uses. The collecting and reception of medicinal commodities from China in early modern England not only required the individual to analyze and utilize these imported commodities through scientific observation and experimentation, but also the efforts of English consumers to accentuate the commodity as daily practices, rituals, and habits. The appropriation of Chinese medicinal plants in early-modern England was forged through the creation of scholarly, commercial, and cultural discourses on the commodities. In this dissertation, I structured the