Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History: 960–1665

Charlotte Furth

Published by University of California Press 1999

Flourishing Yin

Gender in China's Medical History: 960–1665

Charlotte Furth
Edited by: Charlotte Furth

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520918870

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book brings the study of gender to Chinese medicine and in so doing contextualizes Chinese medicine in history. It examines the rich but neglected tradition of fuke, or medicine for women, over the seven hundred years between the Song and the end of the Ming dynasty. Using medical classics, popular handbooks, case histories, and belles lettres, it explores evolving understandings of fertility and menstruation, gestation and childbirth, sexuality, and gynecological disorders.

Furth locates medical practice in the home, where knowledge was not the monopoly of the learned physician and male doctors had to negotiate the class and gender boundaries of everyday life. Women as healers and as patients both participated in the dominant medical culture and sheltered a female sphere of expertise centered on, but not limited to, gestation and birth. Ultimately, her analysis of the relationship of language, text, and practice reaches beyond her immediate subject to address theoretical problems that arise when we look at the epistemological foundations of our knowledge of the body and its history.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Introduction: Medical History, Gender, and the Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 The Yellow Emperor's Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 The Development of Fuke in the Song Dynasty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
3 Gestation and Birth in Song Medicine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
4 Rethinking Fuke in the Ming Dynasty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
5 To Benefit Yin: Fuke and Late Ming Medical Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
6 "Nourishing Life": Ming Bodies of Generation and Longevity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
7 A Doctor's Practice: Narratives of the Clinical Encounter in Late Ming Yangzhou Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
8 In and Out of the Family: Ming Women as Healing Experts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
9 Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Character Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 343
Illustrations
- Other: 20 halftones; 5 musical examples
Keywords: History; Asia; General

eBook

Published: August 31, 1999
ISBN: 9780520918870

Paperback

Planned Publication: August 31, 1999
ISBN: 9780520208292