East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM - Universität Tübingen)

Jami, Catherine

 REVIEWS 
 
 
Claudia von Collani (ed.), Joachim Bouvet S.J. Journal des voyages. Taipei: 
Taipei Ricci Institute (Variétés Sinologiques New Series; 95), 2005. iv, 374 
pp. 
 
Catherine Jami 
 
[Catherine Jami is Senior Researcher at the French CNRS (REHSEIS, Paris). 
She is currently the French Government Fellow at Churchill College, and a 
visiting scholar at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, UK. She has 
published extensively on seventeenth and eighteenth century Chinese mathemat-
ics, as well as on the Jesuits and the reception of the science they introduced in 
the late Ming and early Qing period. She is writing a book on the appropriation 
of mathematics by the state during the Kangxi reign.] 
 
 
Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730) was one of the five French Jesuits who entered 
China in 1687, sent to the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) by Louis XIV (r. 
1643-1715) as his “Mathematicians.” He worked at the Qing court, serving 
mainly as an imperial tutor in the sciences. In 1693, the emperor sent him back 
to France, where he was to ask Louis XIV to send to China more Jesuits versed 
in the sciences. The book under review is an annotated edition of the diary kept 
by Bouvet during “three and a half years of a hard and tedious trip” (p. 285): 
having left Beijing on 8 July 1693, he reached Brest on 1 March 1697. 
While the text of the diary itself is in the original French, the sixty-page in-
troduction and the footnotes are in English. The introduction contextualises the 
diary: it gives an outline of Bouvet’s career as a missionary from his first depar-
ture from France in 1685 until his return to China in 1698. This gives the editor 
an opportunity to describe the complex situation brought about in the Catholic 
missionary enterprise in Asia by the competition among European countries and 
religious orders, as well as the efforts by the Holy See to gain control over mis-
sions. In particular, Bouvet was eager to defend the Jesuits against the attacks of 
other priests working in China in what came to be known as the “Rites Contro-
versy”: whereas the Jesuits described Confucian rituals such as ancestor worship 
as “civil,” other missionaries labelled them “superstitions” and aimed at forbid-
ding the Chinese Christians to take part in such rituals. 
The manuscript published here, which is kept at the Bayerische Staatsbiblio-
thek, München, is not an autograph. According to the editor it was copied (and 
sometimes abridged) by Bouvet’s brother, after the former arrived in France. In 
several places the text is supplemented in the footnotes by the longer version, 
parts of which are still available at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris). 
104 
105 Reviews 
Abundant footnotes elucidate most of the names of places, persons, and Chinese 
terms encountered in the diary. 
The longest part of the diary is devoted to the background of Kangxi’s com-
mission, and to the trip from Peking to Canton and the time spent between Can-
ton and Macao looking for a ship to board (pp. 61-222). Bouvet travels as an 
imperial envoy (qinchai 欽 差), and is escorted by a cousin of the emperor (p. 
114). Fresh horses and boats are put at his disposal whenever necessary, he re-
ceives ceremonial greetings and is offered banquets by local officials every-
where he stops: these travel conditions give us a glimpse of the network through 
which imperial authority extended throughout the empire. We also get a view of 
the geography of Christianity in late seventeenth-century China: Bouvet de-
scribes all the parishes that he visits, and lists the missionaries he meets. His 
status enables him to recommend them to local officials: again one can see how 
the Jesuits could use their position at Court to protect “grass-root” missionaries 
and Christians in the provinces. Most of the places mentioned in Bouvet’s diary 
have been identified and are listed in the very valuable index; a map would have 
helpful too. Some small omissions: for example, when on p. 124 one reads that 
Bouvet has crossed the border between the province of “Peking” and that of 
“Canton”—where, as we learn on p. 129, Confucius was born—, a footnote 
referring the readers to Shandong 山 東 would have been welcome.  
No more than sixty-two pages (pp. 222-284) are devoted to the hazardous 
trip that took Bouvet back to France. From Macao (January 1694) he sailed to 
Surat (May 1694); there he boarded a Turkish ship (March 1695) which took 
him to Gidda (April 1695), where, hearing rumours of an attack led by the son of 
the Great Moghul, Bouvet felt it was safer to retrace his steps to Surat (Decem-
ber 1695). He finally boarded a French ship there (April 1696), which took him 
back via the Cape of Good Hope and Brazil, as was usual at the time; the final 
destination was Brest (March 1697), from where Bouvet had first sailed to China 
twelve years earlier. According to his account, it was the wars and rivalry among 
European countries, as well as with “Mahometans,” and the unreliability of some 
ship captains and local custom officers, that made this trip lengthy and danger-
ous, rather than the hazards of climate or the shortcomings of naval technology. 
His status as envoy from the Kangxi Emperor could still be of use in such a 
context, although it no longer granted comfort or safety as it had in China. This 
second part of the diary is somewhat less gripping than the account of the land 
travel through China; this is probably due to the fact that Bouvet understood less 
of what he saw around him; most of the time he needed an interpreter.  
In addition to a map of this second part of the journey (pp. ii-iii), the editor 
has supplied a chronology ranging from January 1693, when the narrative of the 
diary starts, until November 1699, after Bouvet returned to Beijing. After a well-
documented bibliography of Western sources and secondary literature, she gives 
an index that has been divided into the following seven sections: persons (with 
Chinese characters where relevant); Chinese terms; science and subjects; astro-
nomical and mathematical instruments and gifts; ships; church missions and 
106 EASTM 24 (2005) 
parishes; geography. Where relevant, Bouvet’s transcriptions, Chinese and Man-
chu names and Chinese characters are given, when the author has been able to 
identify them, that is in most cases. This makes the volume a very useful re-
search tool: readers who are not very familiar with the French language can 
conveniently locate material relevant to, for instance, history of science and 
medicine or history of missions.  
There are a few mistakes in the transcription of the French: for example, p. 
71, “conferté” should be “conserté,” for which the standard modern spelling is 
“concerté.” As this example suggests, the irregularity of the spelling of the 
manuscript makes it very difficult to make the right guess when the reading is 
not obvious. There are also a few repetitions, inaccuracies and inconsistencies in 
the footnotes; for example, note 425 (p. 197) claims that “the so-called ‘Glorious 
Revolution’ [was] initiated by […] William of Orange”; in fact it was the Eng-
lish Parliament that caused the downfall of James II, and the Parliament which 
then invited William of Orange to succeed him. This example, by the way, gives 
a glimpse of the breadth of topics mentioned in Bouvet’s diary.  
This diary is of direct relevance to the history of science in Qing China, as it 
gives a glimpse of the Jesuits’ work in the service of the emperor during the 
Kangxi reign. It also provides access to an interesting sample of a genre that was 
to flourish in eighteenth-century Europe, that of travel literature, which has re-
cently been the object of much research. Bouvet’s view of China is that of a 
“correspondent” of the Paris Royal Academy of Sciences (before that status was 
formally defined in 1699) in charge of sending information on natural history 
and Chinese medicine,1 as well as that of a missionary well versed in the cus-
toms of the empire. Just like the volume Bouvet published in France in 1697,2 
his diary is probably intended for royal reading (p. 59): as mentioned above, he 
had been sent by Kangxi to ask Louis XIV to send him more Jesuit mathemati-
cians. Therefore it comes as no surprise that it emphasises the favour in which 
the emperor held the French Jesuits in 1693, and interprets it in terms of the 
prospects for evangelisation in China. My most important reservation about this 
volume is that it relies solely on Western sources and secondary literature, and 
effectively adopts Bouvet’s viewpoint. Claudia von Collani’s contextualisation 
of the diary is indeed relevant as regards mission history. But she misses possi-
ble readings of his diary in the light of Chinese history, and in particular of Chi-
nese history of science. Despite this, historians of science who themselves use 
Chinese sources, now have access to a valuable and carefully edited source. 
 
                                                 
1 See Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, V 479, p. 32. 
2 Joachim Bouvet, Portrait historique de l’empereur de la Chine présenté au Roy.  
Paris, 1697. 


Claudia von Collani (ed.), Joachim Bouvet S. J. Journal des voyages

Lackner, Michael

Kim Yung Sik, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200)

Contents 
 
 
Note from the Editor                                         7 
 
A Multi-dimensional Approach to Research on Ancient Science 
—NATHAN SIVIN                                       10 
 
Animal Classification in Ancient China 
—ROEL STERCKX                                       26 
 
Maritime Travel and the Question of Provisions and Scurvy                           
in a Chinese Context 
—MATHIEU TORCK                                     54 
 
Restructuring the Field of Chinese Medicine: A Study of the Menghe 
and Ding Scholary Currents, 1600-2000 (Part 2) 
—VOLKER SCHEID                                      79 
 
 
 
 
Reviews 
 
Yung Sik Kim, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200) 
—reviewed by Michael Lackner                           131 
 
Ho Peng Yoke, Chinese Mathematical Astrology: Reaching out to  
the Stars 
—reviewed by Licia Di Giacinto                           134 
 
Ping-Chung Leung, Charlie Changli Xue, and Yung-Chi Cheng (eds.),  
A Comprehensive Guide to Chinese Medicine  
—reviewed by Volker Scheid                             142 
 
Laurence Schneider, Biology and Revolution in Twentieth-Century         
China 
—reviewed by Zuoyue Wang                             145 
 


Sterckx, Roel

Animal Classification in Ancient China

Contents 
 
 
Note from the Editor                                         7 
 
Restructuring the Field of Chinese Medicine: A Study of the Menghe 
and Ding Scholarly Currents, 1600-2000 (Part 1) 
—VOLKER SCHEID                                           10 
 
The Establishment of Modern Health Demonstration Zones 
and the Regulation of Life and Death in Early Republican Beijing 
—YANG NIANQUN, TRANSL. BY LARISSA HEINRICH               69 
 
The “Why Not” Question of Chinese Science: The Scientific Revolution 
and Traditional Chinese Science 
—YUNG SIK KIM                                            96 
 
 
 
Reviews 
 
Chen Meidong 陈 美 东, Gu li xin tan 古 历 新 探 (New Investigations 
of Ancient Astronomy) 
Chen Meidong 陈 美 东, Zhongguo kexue jishu shi. Tianwenxue juan 
中 国 科 学 技 术 史。 天 文 学 卷 (History of Chinese Science 
and Technology. Astronomy) 
—reviewed by Nathan Sivin                              113 
 
Michael Lackner, Iwo Amelung, and Joachim Kurtz (eds.), New Terms 
for New Ideas: Western Knowledge and Lexical Change 
in Late Imperial China 
—reviewed by Benjamin Elman                            120 
 
Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin, The Way and the Word: Science 
and Medicine in Early China and Greece 
—reviewed by Wang Aihe                               132 
 
 
The 11th International Conference on the History of Science 
in East Asia                                          141 


Kim, Yung Sik

The "Why Not" Question of Chinese Science: The Scientific Revolution and Traditional Chinese Science

Yang, Nianqun

The Establishment of Modern Health Demonstration Zones and the Regulation of Life and Death in Early Republican Beijing

Sivin, Nathan

Chen Meidong 陳美东, Gu li xin tan 古历新探 (New Investigations of Ancient Astronomy) and Chen Meidong 陳美东, Zhongguo kexue jishu shi. Tianwenxue juan 中国科学技术史。天文学卷 (History of Chinese Science and Technology. Astronomy)

Vogel, Hans Ulrich

7 
Note from the Editor 
 
Having received generous support from the German Research Foundation 
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for the publication of this journal from 
1999-2003, I can now report the good news that our application for a continua-
tion of this financial backing has also been granted. This means that the journal 
can be published in Tübingen on behalf of the Society for another five years, that 
is, from 2004 to 2008. On behalf of the members of the Society we would like to 
express our deep gratitude to the German Research Foundation, especially for its 
trust in the importance and the quality of the journal and for its appreciation of 
our attempts to keep costs at a reasonable level in a period of rocketing prices in 
the periodical market. To sell the journal at a relatively modest price is only 
possible because of the selfless service of all the people involved in the editing 
and production process and the support of  scholars in the field. I would therefore 
like to thank especially He Heng and Tobias Wissler as my managing and pro-
duction editors, John P. C. Moffett as English language editor, Jutta Rall-Niu as 
editorial consultant, and my colleagues in Tübingen in the Chinese, Japanese and 
Korean departments who act as Local Advisory Board. My thanks naturally also 
go to the contributors and referees of the journal. It is they who fill the journal 
with life by offering their contributions and providing support as referees and 
book reviewers. I have again to apologize for the delay in the journal‟s publica-
tion, which is due, one the one hand, to the increasing administrative burden and 
teaching obligations heaped on academics in the German university system, and, 
on the other, to the self-imposed demands regarding the journal‟s quality and 
style. We promise to do a better job in the future and to make good the loss in 
time incurred so far. 
Besides three book reviews, this issue of EASTM includes three articles. We 
start with Volker Scheid‟s study of the Menghe and Ding scholarly currents, 
which represent important traditions in the field of Chinese medicine from 1600 
to the present. This contribution, which is based on an analysis of a wide variety 
of original source material, is divided into two parts, the second to be published 
in no. 23 of EASTM. In the small town of Menghe 孟 何, about 30 kilometres 
north of Changzhou in Southern Jiangsu, four important scholarly traditions in 
Chinese medicine can be distinguished, namely the Fei 費, Ma 馬, Chao 巢, and 
Ding 丁 . In this issue, Volker Scheid deals mainly with the history of the 
Menghe scholarly currents from their beginnings until their flourishing period 
from the 1820s to the 1870s. The goal of this very rich and analytically and me-
thodically convincing study is to examine an important medical tradition still 
alive today as a field of practice, and to explore the social agencies that have 
structured and changed it. Scheid is critical about the use of indigenous differen-
tiations, such as between hereditary physicians (shiyi 世 醫) and literati physi-
cians (ruyi 儒 醫), or the Western notion of professionalization as being mean-
ingful categories for getting to grips with the Menghe case. By viewing forms of 
social organisation, knowledge and practice as co-temporaneously constructed, 
8                                                  EASTM 22 (2004) 
he instead employs the concept of „scholarly current‟ (xuepai 學 派) to structure 
his investigation and to compare and contrast it with other forms of social organ-
isation pertinent to Chinese society, such as families, descent groups, lineages, 
marriage alliances, and social and political networking. It is just this combination 
of social history with the history of medical and other thought that characterizes 
Scheid‟s approach, a method through which the complex interrelationship be-
tween social realities and intellectual constructs can obviously be described in an 
adequate way.  
The second article in this issue is a study of the establishment of modern 
Health Demonstration Zones (Weisheng shifanqu 卫 生 示 范 区) in Beijing 
during the early Republican period. Written by Yang Nianqun 杨 念 群 and 
translated by Larissa Heinrich this very instructive contribution highlights the 
effects of  Western-style medical institutions on the functions and identities of 
traditional midwives and funeral specialists. Basing his study on rare archival 
documents the author shows that Health Demonstrational Zones were much 
more successful in establishing state authority within traditional society than, for 
instance, modern-style police. These medical institutions proved able to wring 
control over the regulations concerning the processes of life and death from the 
hands of the traditional actors, thus transforming the events of birth and death 
into specialized medical procedures which for the most part became independent 
of family space. Under these dramatically altered conditions traditional mid-
wives and funeral specialists could not survive, neither as skilled professionals 
nor as mediators of social and cultural order. 
The third article in this issue is a thought-provoking contribution by Yung 
Sik Kim, the former president of the Society, who discusses the pros and cons of 
applying the “Why not” question in Chinese science history. By analysing prob-
lems in both the “Why not” question itself and answers to it, the author holds 
that it nonetheless can be useful to pose such questions, in spite of undeniable 
problems. An unfortunate consequence of banning this question as illegitimate is 
that scholars in the field are abstaining from asking it, while many perhaps much 
less qualified people are continuing not only to ask it, but also to answer it. Yung 
Sik Kim sees four benefits in asking this type of question: a) It provokes interest 
in Chinese science for many people; b) it prompts many historians not only to 
consider the contents of science, but also the intellectual, social, institutional and 
other cultural factors; c) it draws many people into the field of a comparative 
history of science; and d) it leads to an accumulation in the knowledge of all 
kinds of factors, aspects and situations in China that were different from those of 
the West. The article concludes with a short excursion on the Korean version of 
the question, i.e. “Why did Koran science, which had reached the highest level in 
the world in the early fifteenth century, not continue to progress, but stagnate and 
decline instead?” This question is identified by Kim as being part and parcel of 
the Chinese “why not” problem. 
Apart from a couple of book reviews, the next issue of EASTM will contain 
the second and last part of Scheid‟s article. In addition, we will publish an article 
by Roel Sterckx on “Animal Classification in Ancient China,” by Mathieu Torck 
9 
 
 
on “Maritime Travelling and the Question of Provision and Scurvy in the Chi-
nese Context,” and last, but by no means least, a paper by Nathan Sivin on “A 
Multi-dimensional Approach to Research on Ancient Science.” 
 
 
Hans Ulrich Vogel 
Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik 
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen 


Note from the Editor

Scheid, Volker

Restructuring the Field of Chinese Medicine: A Study of the Menghe and Ding Scholarly Currents, 1600-2000 (Part 1)

Not a member yet

Claudia von Collani (ed.), Joachim Bouvet S. J. Journal des voyages

Kim Yung Sik, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200)

Contents