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

Vogel, Hans Ulrich

7 
Note from the Editor 
 
“What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well” or, as we would say in German, 
“Gut Ding will Weile haben.” Eventually, after having surmounted many obsta-
cles and unforeseen complications we are proud to publish the first special issue 
of EASTM. This is a remarkable event not only because it is the first special 
issue, but also because this special number of EASTM is dedicated to Vietnam 
or, more specifically, to the history of Vietnamese military technology. There 
has never been an article published on Vietnam in Chinese Science or EASTM 
before, and we hope that this will provide an impetus for more publications on 
the history of science, technology, and medicine outside of China in our journal. 
In addition, everybody interested in cross-civilisation issues will find fascinating 
cases of the diffusion and transmission of military technology in all four articles 
of this number. The first round of deliberations and reflections with C. Michele 
Thompson on publishing a special issue on Vietnam took place in Singapore in 
1999 during the ISHEASTM meeting. Patience and perseverance have brought 
the plan to fruition. Now, with this special issue at hand I would like to express 
my gratitude to Professor Thompson for never giving up on the idea and for 
having taken upon herself the heavy and time-consuming responsibilities of 
guest editor. We trust that readers will find that the results attained justify all the 
hard work invested by her. 
In addition to four articles dealing with the military history of Vietnam, no. 
21 of EASTM also contains four book reviews. I must admit here that due to 
constraints in time we have not been able to deal with new publications in the 
field of East Asian science, technology and medicine history in a way we feel to 
be adequate. By reorganising the work for EASTM, however, we plan to plough 
this field much more systematically in the future. This drive for systematisation 
and comprehensiveness implies that, besides more recent publications, we also 
intend to publish reviews on works which appeared a few years ago. 
As ever, I would like to thank my collaborators and colleagues in Tübingen 
as well as in Cambridge who have helped to produce this issue. We received 
additional intensive support and dedication during the editing process by one of 
our students, Melanie Stahr. One major difficulty in publishing this number was 
mastering the technical problems associated with the Vietnamese script — a task 
eventually surmounted by my production editors with the help of the librarians in 
the seminars for Chinese and Japanese studies, Thomas Gaiser and Petra Jeisel 
respectively. I naturally also owe the same degree of gratitude to all the contribu-
tors, book reviewers and anonymous referees. In 2004 we will continue to pro-
duce two issues, and as things stand at the moment, a special issue will be among 
them.  
 
Hans Ulrich Vogel 
Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik 
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen 
 
8                                                                                                   EASTM 21 (2003) 
 
ERRATUM: In issue 20 of EASTM, p. 144, we unfortunately have omitted the 
name of GREGORY BLUE who with Catherine Jami and  Peter Engelfriet was one 
of the three editors of Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China: 
The Cross-Cultural Synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) (Leiden, Boston, Köln:                     
Brill, 2001). We apologize for this slip. 


Note from the Editor

   Contents 
 
Special Issue 
Forays into the Field of Vietnamese Military Technology 
 
Note from the Editor                                          7 
 
Introduction from the Guest Editor                                9 
 
Thøc Phán, Cao Tông, and the Transfer of Military Technology                       
in Third Century BC Việt Nam 
  —MARILYNN LAREW                                              12 
 
Flaming Tiger, Burning Dragon: Elements of Early Modern              
Vietnamese Military Technology 
—GEORGE DUTTON                                               48 
 
Ambivalence and Ambiguity: Traditional Vietnam’s Incorporation                
of External Cultural and Technical Contributions  
—NGUYỄN THẾ ANH                                         94 
 
Medicine, Nationalism, and Revolution in Vietnam:                                       
The Roots of a Medical Collaboration to 1945 
—C. MICHELE THOMPSON                                       114 
 
 
Reviews 
 
Fan Dainian and Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Chinese Studies in the            
History and Philosphy of Science and Technology. Translated                
by Kathleen Dugan and Jiang Mingshan  
—reviewed by Iwo Amelung                               149 
 
Joanna Grant, A Chinese Physician: Wang Ji and the “Stone             
Mountain Medical Case Histories” 
—reviewed by Ann Shu-ju Chiu                                                              156 
 
Zhang Junhua and Martin Woesler (eds.), China’s Digital Dream:                        
The Impact of the Internet on Chinese Society 
—reviewed by Ulrich Theobald                               162 
 
Hson-Mou Chang and Paul Pui-Hay But, Pharmacology                                
and Applications of Chinese Materia Medica 
—reviewed by Ulrike Unschuld                          167 
 
 
Zhu Kezhen Award and Zhu Kezhen Junior Award                 171 
 
 
The 11th International Conference on the History of Science 
in East Asia                                         175 


NGUYêN, THê ANH

Ambivalence and Ambiguity: Traditional Vietnam's Incorporation of External Cultural and Technical Contributions

Amelung, Iwo

Fan Dainian and Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Chinese Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.Translated by Kathleen Dugan and Jiang Mingshan

Unschuld, Ulrike

167 Reviews 
Hson-Mou Chang and Paul Pui-Hay But, Pharmacology and Applications of 
Chinese Materia Medica. Hongkong: World Scientific, 2001 [reprint]. 2 vols., 
1432 pp. 
 
Ulrike Unschuld 
 
[Ulrike Unschuld graduated from the Munich University School of Pharmacy in 
1968, and earned a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies in 1972. She has worked on the 
history of Chinese pharmaceutics, and on issues associated with the integration 
of Chinese pharmaceutical therapies in Western health care delivery systems.] 
 
 
For more than 2000 years, the use of pharmaceutical substances—especially of 
botanical drugs—has been the central therapeutic approach pursued by Chinese 
medicine. A large country like China with its diverse geographical zones has an 
enormous wealth of plants. About 7,000 botanical species, almost 20 percent of 
the Chinese flora, have found their way into Chinese traditional materia medica.  
When Chinese herbal therapies became popular in the West in the 1990s, 
many patients and physicians, in Europe at least, were still using herbal remedies 
from the European tradition of “phytotherapy” in their daily health care. Con-
sumers consider these substances to be a “natural” medication, and prefer them to 
synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. They are convinced that consuming herbal drugs 
is less risky for their health. So, when phytotherapy with Chinese herbs was of-
fered, it was accepted almost uncritically. In some cases, though, this proved to 
be dangerous, as the Chinese herbs, at that time, had not been subjected to the 
same amount of research as those herbs used in Western medicine that had be-
come part of the European official pharmacopoeia. 
The trust in Chinese botanical drugs was shaken when first reports of adverse 
effects caused by slimming pills containing the drug Han fangji 漢 防 己 (Steph-
ania tetrandra S.Moore) appeared in the Western media in the early 1990s. Han 
fangji was accused of inducing renal failure. Chromatographic studies showed 
that the drug had been confused with another drug, i.e. Guang fangji 廣 防 己 
(Aristolochia Fangji). Both are assigned colloquially the same name: Fangji 防 
己. 
Most adverse effects of Chinese botanical drugs can be traced to ignorance 
and bad quality. For the Chinese practitioner, the outside appearance of a drug, 
that is, a combination of a traditionally defined aesthetic quality and its careful 
preparation, is most important. The determinants of drug quality that are crucial 
in Western pharmacology, namely identity, purity, and contamination, are not 
decisive for the Chinese practitioner when he buys a drug on the drug market. 
Besides adulteration and contamination, misidentification is an important prob-
lem for Western and Chinese practitioners. In Chinese traditional materia medica 
168 EASTM 21 (2003) 
one name can be given to different botanical drugs, and one and the same herbal 
substance may be traded under different names. 
Practitioners of Chinese Medicine in Asia and in the West tend to overlook 
the potential of the intrinsic toxicity of botanical drugs, and consumers may not 
be aware of this danger. A botanical drug can contain more than one hundred 
constituents. Their synergistic effects, that is, their chemical interaction in the 
human organism after consumption, are rarely known. 
Chinese medical practitioners, pharmacists, and researchers find a great deal 
of data on the therapeutic properties of Chinese herbs in the traditional literary 
sources. Formularies, fangshu 方 書, constitute the historically most important 
literary genre of clinical Chinese medicine. They contain innumerable collections 
of combinations of drugs known to be effective and passed on for centuries, if not 
millennia, as proved recipes. Of similar importance are the so-called bencao 本 
草 works, i.e. collections of descriptions of the properties of individual drugs. 
The problem for the Western researcher or practitioner is the language. For ex-
ample, the largest historical encyclopaedia of Chinese materia medica, the Ben-
cao gangmu 本 草 綱 目, “Materia Medica Arranged According to Monographs 
and Single Criteria” (1596), by Li Shizhen, is available in Chinese and Japanese 
only, but remains inaccessible to most Western readers.  
Since the 1950s, the PRC has engaged in research on Chinese materia medica. 
This includes the collection of plant materials, studies in pharmacognosy, a 
search for active constituents, pharmacological research, and attempts at a verifi-
cation of traditional indications. At the same time, guidelines for quality control 
of botanical substances, as well as for preparing and manufacturing traditional 
herbal remedies, have been issued. In this regard, the publication of the Adminis-
trative Law on the Drug Code of 1985 was a major milestone. 
A series of official Pharmacopoeias of the People’s Republic of China, the 
Zhonghua renmin gongheguo yaodian 中 华 人 民 共 和 国 药 典, reflects many 
of these initiatives. The first edition was published in 1977. The first of its two 
volumes was devoted to crude drugs and preparations from crude drugs, the se-
cond volume offered data on synthetic pharmaceutical substances. Since 1980, a 
revised and supplemented Chinese Pharmacopoeia has been published every five 
years. In 1992, for the first time, an English edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoe-
ia was issued. 
A pioneer work, the Pharmacology and Applications of Chinese Materia 
Medica was published by Chang and But in two volumes in 1986. This work 
offers material collected by a committee during 1978-1979, and was reviewed by 
the Chinese Society for Pharmacology before its publication in Chinese in 1983. 
The first English edition was issued in 1986; identical reprints appeared in 1996, 
1998, and 2001. 
The two volumes contain monographs of 250 items of Chinese materia medi-
ca: 231 herbal, 18 animal, and 1 mineral drug. The description of the drugs fol-
lows the information given in the “Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of 
China” of 1977. The names of the drugs are given in pinyin romanisation. They 
169 Reviews 
are listed according to the number of strokes of their first Chinese character. An 
index of scientific names is provided at the end of the second volume. 
Each monograph is divided into six entries: 
1. Source. This section provides: 
- The Chinese name, Chinese characters, botanical name, and the part of the plant 
being used. In some cases, alternative names of the plant are mentioned. 
- Flavour, thermoquality, actions, and indications ascribed to a drug by traditional 
Chinese pharmacology. 
- Botanical subspecies of the drug which alternatively could be used in different 
Chinese provinces.  
2. Chemical composition. 
3. Pharmacology, including toxicity.  
4. Clinical studies. 
5. Adverse effects. 
6. References. These references quote research articles since the 1940s regarding 
chemical constituents, pharmacology, clinical studies, etc. 
Three indexes of botanical names, pharmacological actions, and Chinese drug 
names are added at the end of each volume. 
Reflecting research policy pursued in the PRC, the emphasis of this work is 
on Western pharmacology and clinical studies. The authors clearly indicate that 
an integration of Chinese and Western medicine is aimed at, with Western medi-
cine taking the lead. In a preface, it is stated that the book is meant to be a refer-
ence work for the Western reader and that therefore it mentions only those as-
pects that correspond to Western scientific thought. Scientific terms are con-
sistent with those in the “Index Medicus,” “Chemical Abstracts,” and the leading 
botanical journals. The preface for the Chinese reader states, that “traditionally 
ascribed actions are omitted in the English edition.” 
Chang and But quote data from both modern Western medicine and tradition-
al Chinese pharmacology, that is, the primary qualities ascribed to botanical 
drugs in the traditional literary sources, i.e. flavour and thermoquality, are given. 
Thus, it is possible to assign to botanical drugs the traditional pharmacological 
effects as well. These parameters provide a link to Chinese traditional pharma-
ceutical literature from before the time when commissions in the PRC began to 
rationalize the body of Chinese traditional medicine in the 1950s. In this respect, 
this work differs from most of the scientific publications in English.  
The difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is alluded to, 
for example, by designating organs such as “kidneys,” shen 腎, and “spleen,” pi 
脾, in quotes to indicate that these are not Western biomedical terms but concepts 
from traditional Chinese medicine. 
Modern readers interested in this work as a reference book should be aware 
that they are consulting a historical work dating from the time of the first Phar-
macopoeia of the PRC, i.e. from 1977. The references to clinical pharmacologi-
cal studies given at the end of each monograph start from the forties of the last 
century and end with the seventies. Since that time, a great deal of research has 
170 EASTM 21 (2003) 
been done on Chinese materia medica that has not been included in any of the 
reprints of this work. Paul But is a well known researcher in botany and biology. 
Molecular biology plays an important role in his studies on Chinese flora and 
Chinese herbal medicine. For further information, interested readers should turn 
to his publications since the 1990s. But’s numerous articles in journals on phar-
maceutics and chemistry demonstrate his interest in creating “rational” botanical 
drugs, i.e. herbal remedies whose quality, chemical constituents, and intrinsic as 
well as extrinsic toxicity are known through pharmacological research. It is only 
by applying this approach that it is possible to compare the use of Chinese mate-
ria medica in Western and Chinese medicine, and to legitimate their therapeutic 
indications. 


Hson-Mou Chang and Paul Pui-Hay But, Pharmacology and Applications of Chinese Materia Medica

Thompson, C. Michele

Medicine, Nationalism, and Revolution in Vietnam: The Roots of Medical Collaboration to 1945

Tian, Miao

The Westernization of Chinese Mathematics: A Case Study of the duoji Method and its Development 

 9 
Introduction from the Guest Editor 
 
Forays into the Field of Vietnamese Military Technology 
 
This volume, Forays into the Field of Vietnamese Military Technology, is the 
first issue of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine to focus on any 
aspect of Vietnamese science, technology, or medicine. The timing of this issue 
is particularly apt as it follows Marta Hanson‟s review article in EASTM 19 enti-
tled “New Directions in the History of Science in East Asia.” This issue, Forays, 
clearly indicates a geographic expansion of the journal‟s publications on East and 
Southeast Asia and can be considered a „foray‟ into new territory for EASTM. 
Although papers on Vietnamese topics were presented at the conferences held by 
the International Society for History of East Asian Science, Technology, and 
Medicine in Seoul and in Shanghai and although there was an entire panel on 
Vietnam, organized by Alexeï Volkov, in Singapore this is the first time that 
articles on Vietnamese science, technology, or medicine have been published in 
the Society‟s journal. In the words of Hans Ulrich Vogel this opens “a new venue 
on a neglected region.”1 
 Here I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who acted as outside 
readers of these essays. Their generously provided insights and suggestions were 
crucial to the reworking of these papers and all of the essays are the better for 
their comments. I would also like to thank Hans Ulrich Vogel and the various 
staff members who have worked on the Forays issue at Tübingen. I tested the 
care and patience of Professor Vogel and his staff repeatedly yet they remained 
supportive of the effort to bring this issue to press. Forays will feature articles by 
George Dutton, Marilynn Larew, and Nguyễn Thế Anh. All are scholars who 
have worked on Vietnam, in various areas within Vietnamese Studies, for many 
years and it has been my pleasure as guest editor to have had the opportunity to 
collaborate with each of them to bring this issue together.  
For many, perhaps most, people who came of age at any point in time during 
and after World War II the first meaning of the word Vietnam is war, rather than 
a place, a country, a people or a culture. Since scholars who work on Vietnam 
have been attempting to rectify this situation for several decades it may seem odd 
that the first issue of EASTM devoted to Vietnamese science, technology, or 
medicine should focus on Vietnamese military technology. Although this particu-
lar emphasis is to some extent accidental it is also serendipitous. These articles 
clearly illustrate that, at this point in time, it is possible to write on military tech-
nology in Vietnam with the Vietnamese themselves as primary actors and with 
the scholarly discussions of this topic revolving around issues relating to Viet-
namese culture and technology rather than to political arguments concerning the 
united States. Further, all four of these articles address a question which has 
                                                 
1 Personal communication 9/27/2000. 
10                                                                                                EASTM 21 (2003)  
dominated Vietnamese Studies, in its broadest sense, since before the field exist-
ed outside of Vietnam.  
 This question is the matter of borrowing, adoption and adaptation if you will, 
of elements of culture from other societies and geographic regions. Within Viet-
namese Studies this is a question that scholars in any field of study who make any 
claim to examine questions of cultural change must address. In fields as disparate 
as Anthropology2 and Zoomorphism3 scholars doing research on things Viet-
namese wrestle with the question of the significance of adoption and adaptation 
of foreign items and ideas. 
 Marilynn Larew takes a fresh look at the first person living in the geographic 
area which is now Vietnam whose name is known to history, Thục Phán, and 
discusses the physical evidence available from his citadel at Cổ Loa for the theo-
ry that when Thục Phán arrived he brought with him important new, to the an-
cient Vietnamese, elements of military technology. George Dutton‟s focus is on 
“the evolution of locally developed military technologies” and he gives a sophis-
ticated overview of important elements of Vietnamese military technology, train-
ing, and tactics. Dutton also discusses the incorporation of foreign technology 
and comes to the interesting conclusion that for most of Vietnamese history while 
technology, both foreign and indigenous, was certainly important that strategy 
and the Vietnamese “knowledge of their own topography have arguable been of 
even greater significance.” Nguyễn Thế Anh makes the question of “Incorpora-
tion of External Cultural and Technical Contributions” the theme of his article 
with a focus on the factors that have shaped the Vietnamese response to the pos-
sibilities and dangers offered by foreign military technology whether physical, 
organizational or strategic. While one hesitates to condense the conclusions of an 
article of this wide ranging one can say that the author implies that the Vietnam-
ese are at their best when they are confident enough to be open to adapting for-
eign ideas to their own needs and that perhaps it is a dangerous point when “Am-
bivalence and Ambiguity” dominate the Vietnamese response. Michele Thomp-
son‟s article examines the tensions between traditional Vietnamese healers and 
western, French, trained physicians in the nationalist movement of the early twen-
tieth century and at the development of a mutually respectful relationship be-
tween the two groups which set the stage for the organization of a military medi-
cal corps for the Vietminh towards the end of World War II. 
 EASTM is a forum for research on the history of science, technology, and 
medicine and these four articles fall directly under that purview. In these days 
when it is acknowledged by most if not all that any history of science, technolo-
gy, or medicine must be set in its proper context it is also appropriate that the 
articles in this issue lie equally within the field of Vietnamese Studies. This issue 
                                                 
2 See, for example, Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam (Berkeley: Univ. of 
California Press, 1993). 
3 See Huỳnh Sanh Thông et al., “The Beast of the Year Bính Dần” (Year of the Tiger) 
The Vietnam Forum 7 (1986), 2-9. 
11 
 
 
is the first „foray‟ for EASTM into the history of Vietnamese science, technology, 
and medicine; however, it is my sincere hope that many more articles and whole 
issues of EASTM will be devoted in the future to Vietnamese topics and that this 
issue will provoke interest in matters connected to history of science, technology, 
and medicine within the community of scholars working on Vietnam and interest 
in matters Vietnamese on the part of scholars working on Asian science, technol-
ogy, and medicine. 
 
C. Michele Thompson 
Department of History  
Southern Connecticut State University 
New Haven 


Introduction from the Guest Editor: Forays into the Field of Vietnamese Military Technology

Dutton, George

Flaming Tiger, Burning Dragon: Elements of Early Modern Vietnamese Military Technology

East Asian 
Science, Technology, 
and Medicine 
 
Number 21 
2003 
 
A journal dedicated to the study of traditional and modern  
East Asian science, technology, and medicine. 
 
 
 
Editor:  
Hans Ulrich Vogel 
 
Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik 
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen 
Wilhelmstr. 133 
72074 Tübingen / Germany 
FAX: 0049 - 7071 - 295733 
E-Mail: eastm@uni-tuebingen.de 
 
 
Managing and Production Editors: 
He Heng, Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik, Tübingen 
Tobias Wissler, Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik, Tübingen 
 
English Language Editor:  
John P. C. Moffett, Needham Research Institute, Cambridge (UK) 
 
Editorial Consultant: 
Jutta Rall-Niu, Seminar für Sprache und Kultur Chinas, Universität Hamburg 
 
Local Advisory Board: 
Klaus J. Antoni, Seminar für Japanologie, Tübingen 
Dieter Eikemeier, Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik, Tübingen 
Viktoria Eschbach-Szabo, Seminar für Japanologie, Tübingen 
Hermann Kogelschatz, Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik, Tübingen 
 
 
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE 
Bridie Andrews, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University 
Francesca Bray, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa 
Barbara 
Christopher Cullen, Department of History, SOAS, University of London  
Benjamin A. Elman, East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University 
Charlotte Furth, Department of  History, University of Southern California, Los 
Angeles 
Hashimoto Keizō, Faculty of Sociology, Kansai University, Osaka 
Huang Yi-Long, Institute of History, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 
Jeon Sang-Woon, Cultural Properties Committee Korea, Seoul 
Catherine Jami, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 
Kim Yung Sik, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University 
Dieter Kuhn, Institut für Kulturwissenschaften Ost- und Südasiens - Sinologie, 
Universität Würzburg 
Angela Ki Che Leung, Sun Yat-Sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy, 
Academia Sinica, Taipei 
Liu Bing, Institute of  Science, Technology and Society, Tsinghua University, 
Beijing 
Liu Dun, Institute for the History of Natural Science, Academia Sinica, Beijing 
Morris Low, Department of Asian Languages and Studies, University of 
Queensland, Brisbane 
Georges Métailié, Centre Alexandre Koyré, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN, Paris 
Shi Yunli, Department of the History of  Science and Scientific Archaeology, 
University  of  Science and Technology of China, Hefei 
Nathan Sivin, Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of 
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 
C. Michele Thompson, Department of History, Southern Connecticut State 
University, New Haven 
Tsukahara Togo, History and Philosophy of  Science, Technology and Medicine, 
Kobe University 
Paul U. Unschuld, Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Ludwig-Maximilians-
Universität München 
Donald B. Wagner, Department of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen 
Yoshida Tadashi, Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai 
 
 
 
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Note from the Editor

Contents

Ambivalence and Ambiguity: Traditional Vietnam's Incorporation of External Cultural and Technical Contributions

Fan Dainian and Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Chinese Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.Translated by Kathleen Dugan and Jiang Mingshan

Hson-Mou Chang and Paul Pui-Hay But, Pharmacology and Applications of Chinese Materia Medica

Medicine, Nationalism, and Revolution in Vietnam: The Roots of Medical Collaboration to 1945

The Westernization of Chinese Mathematics: A Case Study of the duoji Method and its Development

Introduction from the Guest Editor: Forays into the Field of Vietnamese Military Technology

Flaming Tiger, Burning Dragon: Elements of Early Modern Vietnamese Military Technology

Editorial

370

608