Osler Library Newsletter

Osler Library Newsletter

OSLER LIBRARY NEWSLETTER McGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL, CANADA No. 18 - February 1975 CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF WESTERN MEDICAL TEXTBOOKS On October 25th, 1974, Dr. John Z. Bowers delivered a lecture to McGill medical students on some aspects of the history of medicine in China. At that time the uring a visit to the Osler Library of Editorial Committee asked Dr. Bowers to write an McGill University of October 25th, article for the Osler LibralY Newsletter. His contribu- 1974, Professor Donald Bates show- tion appears here. The members of the Editorial Com- ed me a Chinese translation of Osler's mittee are grateful to Dr. Bowers and readers of the The Principles and Practice of Medi- Newsletter will share their gratitude. cine (Bibl. Oslo 3560). With it was correspondence be tween Osle rand the translator, Dr. Philip B. Cous- tology, pharmacology, obstetrics, diseases of children, and land, M.B., C.M., Edinburgh, who bandaging. was a medical missionary in China. Dr. P.B. Cousland of the English Presbyterian Mission and a The translation of Western medical texts into Chinese is of found ing member of the Chinese Medical Missionary Associ- special interest because it was a principal program of the ation (CMMA) in 1886, was an early voice in launching the medical missionaries and an important step in the introduc- translation program of the Association. In 1897 he urged tion of Western medicine to China. It was linked to the determination of the missionaries that Chinese should be the the Educational Committee of the Association to arrange the preparation of an authentic series of medical textbooks medium for bringing Western medicine to China because it with a special translator. His proposal was adopted and by was the language of the people. At the same time there were 1900 translations of Textbook of Ophthalmology by Norris major difficulties because medical and scientific terms in and Oliver and Ira Remsen's Textbook of Chemistry had Chinese were essentially non-existent. been completed by James Boyd Neal, M.D., of the American The earliest translations were of sections of the Holy Bible Presbyterian Mission at Tsinanfu, later Shantung Cluistian into Chinese in the early seventh century by Nestorian mis- University Medical School. The Association program soon sionaries. Those discovered include the Sermon on the became the major such effort in China. The Association's Mount, works from the prophet Isaiah, and several other Terminology Committee also compiled an English-Chinese quotations from the Gospels. John de Montecorvino, a Fran- Lexicon of Medical Terms. ciscan, is said to have translated the New Testament and the A list of translations under the auspices of the CMMA, 1911- Psalter into Chinese during his years in China, 1294-1330. 13, includes Osler's The Principles and Practice of Medi- Credit for the first complete translation of the Bible goes. to cine, seventh edition, Shanghai, China Medical Missionary Robert Morrison, 1782-1834, of the London Missionary Association Publication Committee, 1910 (BibL Oslo 3560). Society, who, after education in divinity, had walked the The eighth edition (Bibl. Oslo 3561) was included in the wards in an abbreviated medical course at SLBartholomew's 1917-20 list. Both translations were by P.B.Cousland. In Hospital in London. Morrison completed a translation of the the Preface to Ius first translation, Cousland noted that he entire Bible to Chinese in 1819, and it...was printed at the had not adhered strictly to Osler's text: Chinese press which he had established in Malacca. Diseases rare or unknown in Cluna have been dealt Benjamin Hobson, M.B., M.D., London, 1839, a missionary with somewhat tersely, while others have been taken of the London Missionary Society, 1847-56, was the pioneer in whole or in part from Sir Patrick Manson's Tropical compiler of medical texts. In 1851 he completed a text- Diseases. The geographical distribution and incidence book of anatomy and physiology drawn from a number of in China have been given as far as could be ascertained. sources which was the first publication by a physician of a Etiological theories and morbid anatomy have as a text based on Western medicine. rule been condensed and such matter as is only appro- Hobson was succeeded as the chief compiler of medical priate to the West has been omitted. texts by John Glasgow Kerr, M.D., of the American Presby- He also expressed thanks to one Mr. Ch'en Yu T'ing of terian Mission at the Canton Hospital. Kerr compiled and Swatow whose gift of $1,000 supported the Chinese assis- translated thirty-four volumes of texts into Cantonese on a tants. In subsequent editions Cousland added chapters on wide range of medical and surgical subjects between 1855 the major parasitic diseases of China which had been written and 1901 - medicine, ophthalmology, pathology, demla- by Western physicians working there. The historiated letter which appears on this page is reproduced from William Gilbert, de Magneta, .... London, 1600. Bib/. Oslo 67~ THE 11-' ~ ~l'inciplcs anb ~l'actice j~X OF m fI~ebtctne ~~ § ny fr WILLIAM OSLER, M.D., F.R.S. § ~ "[1.1.0\\0.. ,.,... ''''V.\I. ""'He, "', "11"""''''. '.0'"""< nw,"" rno,.,,,,on Jl H "... "WU"NF. OX"ORO UXII'FRSln SF:rI'NTH EDITION. ~ JtJi 1*1 Tn"SI.ATE. RV !'IIIUI' B. COUSLAND, M.B., C.M., E(UN. J: till ~9- ~~.:.t))~: -. ~~ 1t \1f 11 "::R ¥ ~9 ~.:-;-' if ~6'1 PUBLICATION COMMITTEE CHINA MEDICAL MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION ~ SHANOHA.I tnto Title pages, Chinese and English, of Chinese edition of Osler's The Principles and Practice of Medicine. Bibl. Oslo 3560. The 1923-24 report of the CMMA lists a translation of the There were printing houses in Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, . first volume of the ninth edition of Osler's Medicine and the Limited; and in Tientsin: The Tientsin Press, Ltd. The mis- 1926 report states that the translation of the third Chinese sionaries preferred to use printing presses in Tokyo because edition had been completed. The book was published in their work was of higher quality. Shanghai in 1925 (Bibl. Os/. 7742). A principal center for the translation of scientific books was Other Western texts that were popular included Gray's the Kiangnan Arsenal, Shanghai, founded in 1865 where an Anatomy, Haliburton's Physiology, Hare's Therapeutics, and American missionary, John Fryer, was head of the Transla- Holt's Diseases of Infancy and Childhood. tion Bureau for a number of years. Between 1880 and 1896, the Arsenal's Translation Bureau produced seventy-four Translations were also undertaken outside of the CMMA I program, primarily for local use by a medical school. For translations on manufacturing, mathematics, military affairs, example, members of the West China Union University geology, anatomy, and botany. Oevello Z. Sheffield, another Medical School at Chengtu, Szechuan, which was unusually American missionary. wrote Chinese textbooks in psychology, isolated, made several translations. Rawling's Lalldmarks history, and political science at the North China College at and Surface Markings was translated by William R. Morse Tungchow. of Toronto and McGill. Such translations were submitted A major early translation was that of William A.P. Martin, for approval to the China Medical Association. an American missionary at Ningpo, who, between 1858 and In 1914 an official center for translations was established 1863, translated Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law. It served to introduce international law to the Tsungli at Shantung Christian UniversityMedicalSchool, also known Yam ell, China's new foreign offlce. as Cheeloo, at Tsinanfu, Shantung Province, under the direction of James Boyd Neal and Randolph T. Shields. Dr. At the Peking Union Medical College, which accepted its Mary Fulto'n, president of Hackett Medical College for first class of premedical students on September 11, 1917, women, left the school in 1915 to spend her full time in English was the educational medium. This occasioned deep translations at the center. anxiety alllong the missionaries for they saw it as a threat The translation of medical texts to Chinese was also a con- to their cherished translation program. tribution of Aurora University at Shanghai, a French Jesuit We have no evidence from recent visitors to China that the institution where a medical school was opened in 1914. translations by the missionaries are in use today. In all proba- Aurora also operated a press at its campus in Zicawei, a bility they went the way of other reminders of the Western suburb of Shanghai. period after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. LATEST EXHlUlT OF THE OSLER LIBRARY: "PORTRAITS FROM THE KALZ COLLECTION" BIBLIOGRAPHY An important part of the Osler Library is its picture collec- , Aurora University Archives,Centre Culturel, Les Fontaines, tion, which has been developed from many sources and Chantilly, France. contains different types of material from a portrait series of Balme, H. China and Modem Medicine: A Study in Medical outstanding 17th to 19th Century European physicians to Missionary Developnlent. London: United Council for engravings, photographs, medical illustrations and carica- Missionary Education, 1921 tures. Because most people are not well acquainted with tha Bennett, Adrian A. Jolm Fryer: The Introduction of West- Osler Library picture collection, it was decided to exhibit ern Science and Technology into Nineteenth Century part of it. The Kalz Collection has been chosen for exhibi- China. Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monograph tion since il was the first major contribution of portraits to Series No. 24. the Osler Library. Cadbury, WW., and Jones, M.H. At the Point ofa Lancet: The Osler Library acquired this collection in 1958 and Dr. One Hundred Years of the Canton Hospital. 1835- Lloyd G. Stevenson, then Professor of the History of Medi- 1935.

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