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

Bumbacher, Stephan

Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Translation and study by Donald J. Harper

Walravens, Hartmut

119 Reviews
Essential Subtleties on the Silver Sea. The Yin-hai jing-wei    : A
Chinese classic on ophthalmology. Translated and annotated by Jürgen
Kovacs and Paul U. Unschuld. Comparative Studies of Health Systems and
Medical Care; no. 38. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of
California Press, 1998. xii, 503 pp.
Hartmut Walravens
[Hartmut Walravens is Director of Bibliographic Services at the Berlin State
Library and concurrently Director of the International ISBN Agency. He teaches
at the East Asian Seminar, Free University of Berlin, and the Japan Center,
Humboldt University, Berlin. His main interests are in bibliography, history of
East Asian Studies and the history of science.]
While Chinese medicine has been very popular in recent decades, the main focus
of Western researchers has been on acupuncture and techniques that might
complement clinical medicine. This has led to a flood of publications but has not
necessarily contributed to a better understanding of the evolution and
development of this discipline in China.
Paul Unschuld has done a great deal to lay solid foundations in this respect:
His Medicine in China: A history of ideas (Berkeley 1985) and Medicine in
China: A history of pharmaceutics (Berkeley 1985) were a major breakthrough
in the historical field, while Nan-ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues (Berkeley
1986) gave a carefully commented translation of one of the most important
traditional texts. Worth mentioning in this context are also the German
predecessor of the History of pharmaceutics, Pen-ts‘ao. 2000 Jahre traditionelle
pharmazeutische Literatur Chinas and also Yü-chih pen-ts‘ao p‘in-hui ching-
yao. Ein Arzneibuch aus dem China des 16. Jahrhunderts (both: München
1973).
Now Unschuld and J. Kovacs tackle a special discipline, that of
ophthalmology, as little attention has been paid so far to the genesis and
development of individual branches of the medical sciences and their rich
literature in China. The Yinhai jingwei sticks out as one of the most important
traditional works on afflictions of the eye. While attributed to Sun Simiao (581-
682?) it seems to be a compilation of different sources from the 14/15th
centuries. This latter view is supported by the fact that the work is first
mentioned in Ming works like Huang Yuji’s Qianqingtang shumu    
, and the editors of the Qing imperial library catalogue pointed out that the
term yinhai   was not used before Su Shi (1036-1101) and Wang Anshi.
Also the editor of the known early editions of the work, Qi Yijing   
(second half of the 16th century), says that he received the unpublished
manuscript of the treatise from a friend named Li Chonghan    who pitied
him for suffering from an eye affliction. From circumstantial evidence we may
120 EASTM 19 (2002)
assume that the Yinhai jingwei was published by Qi before 1579 or shortly
thereafter.
The authors have collated the texts of several editions:
Edition T, preserved in the National Central Library, Taibei; it originally
consisted of two volumes, of which the last 104 and 84 pages are extant (10
lines per page, 20 characters per line). It is apparently a Ming edition.
Edition J, 2 volumers. Osaka: Kyoushiya, 1668.
Edition S, from the imperial library Siku quanshu    , as printed by
Wang Yunwu, Taibei. 266 pp.
Edition Z, modern edition, based on the Zuigengtang    woodblock
edition published Taibei: Wuzhou chubanshe, 1980; largely identical with
the edition published Beijing: Remin weisheng chubanshe, 1956, which
again goes back to the Qing edition collated by Zhou Liangjie   . A
copy of the latter is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
(Courant 5196), another one in the British Library, London.
Edition C, commented upon by Chen Zi  , Taibei: Lixing shuju, 1982;
largely identical with the edition published Shanghai: Qianxiangtang shuju,
1982.
The Yinhai jingwei is introduced by 14 paragraphs which are devoted to the
Chinese adaptation of the Indian theories of the five spheres (wu-lun) and eight
boundaries,(ba kuo), short surveys of the viscera and bowels, the conduits, the
emotions, the body liquids, the five flavours, and the various influences (qi )
which may generate illness. The first main portion of the work described 81 eye
afflictions, which is an adaptation of the number of 72 of the Indian tradition to
Chinese standards. The descriptions themselves vary considerably according to
pattern and concept. Then follows a listing of 106 prescriptions, including
indications, ingredients, and specifications for processing and consumption. The
last part of the book comprises 17 different sections elucidating the application
of drugs; and there is a list of 134 individual drugs. Four sections cover criteria
for eye examination.
The present book starts with a very valuable historical introduction that
outlines the development of Chinese ophthalmology, and an analysis of the
Yinhai jingwei (6-115). The main body of the work (117-464) consists of the
collated Chinese text and an annotated translation of the Yinhai jingwei.
There are a number of appendices: 1. An alphabetical list of drugs mentioned
in the Yinhai jingwei (465-477), 2. Literature used in the identification of drugs
(479; it is surprising not to find there Bernard E. Read’s Chinese medicinal
plants from the Pen Ts‘ao Kang Mu, repr. Taibei: Southern Materials Center,
1977), 3. A comprehensive bibliography (481-488; primary Chinese sources,
secondary sources in Chinese, secondary sources in Western languages and
Japanese) and 4. Editions of the Yinhai jingwei collated for the present edition
(488-489).
121 Reviews
The bibliographer misses a number of entries that are of no great importance
in this context but which might be expected, e.g. Franz Hübotter: Die
chinesische Medizin; K. Chimin Wong, Wu Lien-teh: History of Chinese
medicine (Shanghai: National Quarantine Service, 1936. Vol. 1, 223-224); and
E. R. Jellison: "Translation of a Chinese work on ophthalmology" (Chinese
Medical Journal 13.1899, 84 ff).
There are three indices, two for prescriptions (Chinese as well as English),
and a general index. Chinese characters are given throughout the book.
The first part of the introduction gives a history of ophthalmology in China,
in the context of the development of medicine, beginning with the oracle bones
from the Shang/Yin period. It seems that there was no interruption in the
Chinese written medical tradition owing to the Qin burning of books (as it is
assumed for political and philosophical texts). The authors draw a parallel
between the political situation in the Zhou period (especially the Warring States)
and the development of medical concepts:
During the Zhou era itself, the social reality of ‹all
against all›, of the necessity of defense against an ever-
imminent threat of attack not only among states and city-
states but also among smaller social groups and within
families, resulted in the rise and dominance of
demonological notions in health care. Health, in this
perspective, is an outcome of successful defense against the
onslaughts of demonic beings. [… A] holistic understanding
of eye afflictions as integrated pathological conditions of a
larger organism was paired with outright militaristic notions
of an intrusion of pathogens into the organism, where they
attack or form alliances with one another, or struggle with
the body’s organs or defense system.(p.11)
The Han period was characterized by a linking of physiological, pathological
and etiological notions on the basis of yin yang and the five phases with
acupuncture, a new therapy mentioned for the first time in the Shiji  (90
BC). This system of systematic correspondence involved the viscera (zang )
and bowels (fu ). The authors investigate ophthalmological aspects in
individual works like the Huangdi neijing, the Zhubing yuan-hou lun   
   (by Chao Yuanfang   , 610), the Qianjinfang    (by Sun
Simiao, 581-682?) and the Waitai biyao  (by Wang Tao  , ca.
670-755), the latter already showing Indian influence. The Song dynasty shows
a marked influx of Indian concepts, usually linked to the name of Nâgârjuna
(Longshu  ); there is the doctrine of the wu-lun  , five spheres: wind-
sphere (the black part of the eye), water-sphere (the pupil), qi-sphere (the white
part of the eye), flesh-sphere (the lids), and blood-sphere (the canthi [in the
Indian original: the eyelashes]), which were associated with the five phases and
the five viscera. In contrast, the doctrine of the eight boundaries, or bulwarks (ba
122 EASTM 19 (2002)
kuo ) became less popular, perhaps also because of the difficulty of
integrating it in the Chinese system of numerological correspondence – only the
ba gua, eight trigrams were an obvious link. Then the Shengji zonglu   
 (1111-1117), as an example of a major Song encyclopedia, with little Indian
influence is discussed. As the Jin/Yuan periods offered little in the field of
ophthalmology, the discussion leads directly to the Yinhai jingwei. The question
is raised why the Chinese paid comparatively little attention to anatomy, and the
anatomy of the eye in particular. While Chinese physicians were no doubt not
completely ignorant as to the anatomical aspects of the eye as can be seen from
numerous details in ophthalmological literature (though they were not aware of
the lens, for example), "[no] convincing answer has been formulated as to why
in China, that is, in a culture certainly not lacking in intellectual nonconformists
and even less lacking in highly skilled observers, for two thousand years no
‹outsiders› emerged to develop an alternative medical perspective focusing on
morphological pathology." [The reviewer took the liberty of inserting the "no"
which seems to be lacking.) The authors point out an "idiosyncrasy" in Chinese
medicine where the concept of obsolescence is absent. An old concept is not
replaced by a new one, but there are many undecided controversies.
The authors explain the Chinese notion of eye "afflictions," a term
intentionally used because the concept stipulates a primary illness to be the
reason for a pathocondition (a term coined by P. Unschuld; the Chinese term is
zheng ); in the case of the eye it is often a disorder of the liver that may cause
such a condition. Pathoconditions may result from personal lifestyle, like
alcoholism ("blockages in the spleen and stomach and accumulation of heat in
the liver," greed, licentiousness ("exhausts the kidneys"), too much eating and
drinking, etc.. Malnutrition may be the problem, not only with the poor but also
with the rich who do not pay attention to a balanced diet for their children. Too
much studying at night under lamplight might cause "fatigue in the liver."
Suppressing any of the seven emotions may result in liver-wind and
accumulations of heat as signs of an exhaustion of the liver.
The accumulated wind or heat, or evil qi will then move upward into the
head and attack or fill the eye. The authors point out that there is no reason to
assume that such processes were considered symbolic, or virtual. This is quite
clear in the case of eye afflictions in women caused by a menstruation problem,
where blood instead of flowing downwards would flow upwards, "pour into the
pupil, causing the eye to become red and rough."
The Yinhai jingwei is unique in Chinese traditional literature insofar as it is
illustrated; these drawings cannot compare, however, with European medical
illustrations of the time. One of the reasons may be the limited potential of the
block-printing technique, and it is possible that on the manuscript level there
were colored drawings of higher quality – but this is only speculation. Owing to
the insufficiency of the illustrations much emphasis is laid on the descriptions,
especially the metaphors.
123 Reviews
The treatment suggested by the Yinhai jingwei is medicine to cure the
primary disease and drugs or surgery to relieve the eye affliction. It is
remarkable that acupuncture, nowadays considered an epitome of Chinese
medicine, is not mentioned at all. There is reference, however, to moxibustion,
so there is a relation at least to the acupuncture points. While pharmaceutics play
a very important role in the Yinhai jingwei we also have some information on
surgical treatment. The eye, seems to have been the only organ in traditional
Chinese medicine to be considered suitable for the application of a knife, a hook
and a needle. The methods comprise puncturing to let bad water out,
cauterization of the eye-lid, etc. Quite remarkable, and slightly enigmatic, is a
section the "surgical method with the golden needle," which recommends
Buddhist rituals in connection with cataract couching. It turns out that the
techniques described were obviously borrowed from India, and chapter 17 of the
Uttaratantra section of the uta-samhita is quoted for comparison. It
does not become quite clear whether the Chinese author actually was really
familiar with operations that may have been the domain of Buddhist physicians.
The last chapter of the introduction discusses the 81 nosographies in 13 groups
from a pathological perspective of today.
The main body of the book consists of the extenso translation of the Yinhai
jingwei of which the 81 nosographies are most interesting: "Helical protrusion,"
"Protrusion of the eye," "Rigid lids and rigid eyes," "White dimples with fish-
scale pattern," "Patterned shade with white dimple" are a few examples of titles.
As mentioned, the whole translation is accompanied by the collated Chinese text
and is carefully annotated.
The editors of the Siku quanshu gave the following comment on the Yinhai
jingwei: "The discussion of all the symptoms in this book is very clear. It applies
the [therapeutic] methods of supplementation as well as draining, and employs
both cooling and warming [drugs]. [The book] has the advantage of not
[advocating merely] a one-sided [therapeutic] approach. Many prescription
specialists rely [on this book]. Still, if one intends to apply the techniques of this
[book] in practice, it is of no use to deliberate whether it is truly an authentic
[work of Sun Simiao]. [……] Since the prescriptions for the treatment of the eye
written down in this text are quite useful, we record this book here for its own
value."
Kovacs and Unschuld have provided not only a good edition and translation
of another important Chinese text, much more, they have opened the field of
Chinese ophthalmology to the Western medical historian. Even more important
is the methodological concept, namely to link the research results from the study
of such "general" classics as the Huangdi neijing and the Nanjing with the study
of individual medical disciplines, and we hope that other scholars will follow
suit, and study, for instance, the important works in other fields.
The present work shows a rare combination of sinological, medical and
pharmaceutical expertise, and it may be justly considered a breakthrough in the
study of traditional Chinese medicine.
124 EASTM 19 (2002)


Essential Subtleties on the Silver Sea. The Yin-hai jing-wei: A Chinese Classic on Ophthalmology. Translated and annotated by Jürgen Kovacs and Paul U. Unschuld

Cover

Nakayama, Shigeru

The Yabuuti Paradigm in the History of Chinese Science

Raphals, Lisa

A "Chinese Eratosthenes" Reconsidered: Chinese and Greek Calculations and Categories

Loewe, Michael

Donald B. Wagner, The State and Iron Industry in Han China 

Reardon-Anderson, James

134 EASTM 19 (2002)
David Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into
Late Imperial China, 1840-1900. Sinica Leidensia, 48. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
xxvi, 558 pp., 33 illus.
James Reardon-Anderson
[James Reardon-Anderson is Sun Yat-sen Professor of Chinese Studies and
Chair of the Faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of
Georgetown University. He is currently working on a book on the history of
China's northern frontier.]
David Wright has produced a one-volume encyclopedia on the introduction and
development of western science in China during the second half of the
nineteenth century. The book is composed of twelve chapters covering
translation, publication, education, manufacturing, institutions, biographies and
other topics related to the subject in question. It also includes a comprehensive
bibliography (66 pages) of primary sources and published works in Chinese and
English, plus a few in Japanese and French, and appendices (38 pages) listing
the Chinese and western names of important persons, schools, textbooks,
chemical elements, and the like. The book is handsomely published, with a large
number of illustrations that help bring the subject to life.
This book will be of interest to novices who seek an introduction to an
important topic in the history of science and of China and to specialists who
want to quick and readable reference to the literature and subject matter. It is a
summary and compendium of scholarship that has been produced in Chinese and
English during the past quarter century on the history of science in late-Qing
China. It is a good reference work.
Before rushing out to buy this book, which comes from a respected publisher
of scholarly works and carries an appropriately hefty price tag, the reader should
be aware of what it does not contain. First, the book does not contain previously
unpublished material. Rather, it summarizes or discusses topics and sources that
have been covered in English-language publications, and if not in English, then
in Chinese-language books and articles which have appeared in the past ten to
twenty years. There are no revelations based on new primary sources and
nothing that will surprise the reader already familiar with the history of science
in modern China. Second, the book does not put forward any thesis or
proposition. Each chapter ends with a "conclusion," and the final chapter revisits
several of the main points, but these appear as disjointed comments on various
topics or aspects more or less related to the principal subject. There is no
organizing idea.
In the absence of either new research or original theory, the reader is left
with a series of mini-essays or sketches that cut back and forth across the playing
field, without identifiable purpose or connection to the main subject. For
example, the chapter on John Fryer (pp. 100-127) deals almost exclusively with
135 Reviews
Fryer's personal history and his relationship to Europe and Europeans, makes
one assertion about his impact on the reformer Tan Sitong, but otherwise says
nothing about how Fryer did or did not affect the development of science in
China. Readers unfamiliar with the extensive literature on Fryer might not
understand why so much was being made of him. Similarly, the lengthy
discussion of the nature of translation (pp. 186-201) fails to show how this
esoteric branch of European scholarship might be applied to explain the
translation of western scientific writing into Chinese. The reader is presented
with separate treatments of translation theory and scientific translations in China
and left to figure out whether and how these two topics might be connected. As a
final example, the descriptions of "traditional
Chinese conceptions of nature" (pp. 2-23 and 66-71) are ripe with possibilities
for showing how traditional categories and theories of nature were or were not
linked to the introduction and development of modern science in China. Were
yinyang, wuxing, and gezhi precursors, sources, or obstacles to western science?
Some, all, or none of the above? And how? It is difficult to know what the
author thinks, or the reader should think, about these interesting questions.
Translating Science is a useful look back at scholarship on the history of
science in late-Qing China, but does little to carry the investigation forward.


David Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840-1900

Volkov, Alexeï

Yabuuti Kiyosi, Une histoire des mathématiques chinoises

Togo, Toshihiro

Yabuuti Kiyosi's Research on Traditional Technology in Japan

Mei, Jianjun

129 Reviews
Keith Pinn, Paktong: The Chinese Alloy in Europe, 1680-1820. Suffolk: The
Antique Collectors’ Club, 1999. 190 pages, 18 colour plates, 172 black and
white plates, 5 appendices.
Mei Jianjun1
[Mei Jianjun currently works at the Tokyo National Museum as a JSPS (Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science) postdoctoral research fellow. His mono-
graph on copper and bronze metallurgy in prehistoric Xinjiang has recently
appeared and his current research involves early metallurgy in China and its
relationship to the western influence.]
Among those technologies that spread from China to the West during the last
four centuries, Paktong, a copper-nickel-zinc alloy invented in China probably
as early as the 4th century AD, is undoubtedly the most intriguing one. The first
systematic research on paktong is Alfred Bonnin’s treatise, Tutenag & Paktong,
published in 1924. This work remained the only authoritative account of pak-
tong’s history in Europe until recently. The publication of Volume V, Part 2 of
Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China in 1974 provided some
new understandings of paktong, but not a great deal. It was not until the late
1980s that detailed scientific research on the metallurgy of paktong was carried
out in Beijing, revealing for the first time the smelting process used for paktong
in Southwest China.2 At the same time, fresh insights into the history of paktong
in Europe were also gained through the analysis of paktong artefacts in
collections in Britain.3 However, the most important and comprehensive study of
paktong undertaken in recent years is Mr. Pinn’s book.
The present volume is beautifully designed and well written, and its 190
illustrations are especially impressive. It consists of 12 chapters, the first six
focusing on historical issues, the latter six on typological and chronological top-
ics. It opens by placing paktong in its historical context, from the earliest Euro-
pean reference to the alloy in 1597 to the final success of attempts to imitate
paktong in the third decade of the nineteenth century. The processes involved in
the manufacture of paktong are briefly discussed in the opening chapter, and
new sources of information about paktong, such as Matthew Boulton’s records,
                                                
1 The reviewer wishes to thank Mr. John Moffett for his kindly revising the draft of
this review.
2 Mei Jianjun, "The History, Metallurgy and Spread of Paktong," Bulletin of the
Metals Museum vol. 24 (1995-II): 43-55; Mei Jianjun and Ko Tsun, "Studies on Ancient
Metallurgy of Cupronickel in China," Ziran kexueshi yanjiu (Studies in the History of
Natural Sciences) 8.1 (1989): 67-77.
3 Brian Gilmour and Eldon Worrall, "The Trade in Chinese Nickel Brass to Europe,"
British Museum Occasional Paper 109 (1995): 259-82.
130 EASTM 18 (2001)
are also highlighted. In the light of information newly discovered, Chapter 2
presents a brief review of Alfred Bonnin’s book. Having acknowledged that
Bonnin’s basic research was excellent, Pinn points out that there are some errors
in his book, such as Bonnin’s insistence that paktong could only be cast. He then
explains some of his new understandings of the confusion between tutenag and
paktong, as well as a number of specific issues about paktong, such as importa-
tion, costs, retail prices and advertising. Chapter 3 highlights what is known so
far about paktong in China, and also offers an interesting discussion of those
paktong pieces in Western style but of Chinese manufacture. In Pinn’s opinion,
Chinese artisans did not produce large quantities of paktong goods in Western
style for export to Europe, although they were capable of reproducing them.
The most significant and welcome part of the present volume is Chapter 4,
which focuses on Matthew Boulton, a businessman who was closely involved in
the story of paktong during the late eighteenth century. Pinn’s brilliant research
of the Boulton & Fothergill records held at Birmingham Library has revealed a
large quantity of new information, much of it very valuable and informative. As
Chapter 4 shows, Boulton's interest in paktong led him to request that his agent
in London acquire the alloy, his company becoming a major manufacturer of a
variety of paktong wares by using the raw material of white copper imported
from China. This is a fundamentally new perspective in the exploration of the
history of paktong, allowing the clarification of a number of long-standing mys-
teries.
One of the mysteries surrounding paktong is how it was imported into
Europe. Bonnin’s search through the eighteenth-century trade files at the Public
Records Office indicated that only one entry for the importation of white copper
(50 kilograms) from the East Indies in 1760 was registered. This suggested to
Bonnin that the majority of paktong was not officially imported into Britain, but
was brought into the country as part of "privileged trade" (a system that allowed
officers of the East India Company to do their own private trade on a small
scale). This was just an assumption and Bonnin did not have any evidence to
substantiate it. But now, Boulton’s correspondence with his agent in London
regarding negotiations for the purchase of paktong from two East India
Company captains provides clear evidence to confirm that paktong was imported
on a private trade basis rather than through official East India Company
channels. This clarification is significant for the correct understanding of the
social context of paktong trade.
The activity of analyzing and imitating paktong in Europe during the late
eighteenth century is another intriguing issue on which Matthew Boulton’s
archives also shed some new light. Pinn’s research suggests that Boulton had a
keen interest in paktong and was actively involved in investigating its constitu-
ents in order to reproduce it. The letter from Dr. James Keir to Boulton on
March 4, 1781 shows that they once undertook joint experiments on Chinese
(white) copper. Dr. Bryan Higgins is another important figure in the story of
paktong, because he received a gold medal from the Society for the
131 Reviews
Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce for "white copper made
with English materials in imitation of that brought from the East Indies" in 1773.
His letter to Boulton on 28 February 1773 is an interesting new find, showing
that he attempted to sell his "discovery" to Boulton. Also of great interest is
Boulton’s letter to His Excellency Rodney Valtravers. As Pinn explains, this
letter includes important information about the so-called "Gotha White Metal,"
which, in Pinn’s opinion, "came closer to imitating paktong than was to be
achieved in the West for another sixty years."
Matthew Boulton’s archives contain very valuable information about goods
made of paktong at the Soho factory. Pinn’s research suggests that as early as
January 1769 Boulton was already considering the potential use of paktong. A
letter, dated 8 January 1771, shows paktong candlesticks were manufactured at
Soho at that time. Other letters dating from 1771 to 1773 show that a variety of
paktong goods were also produced to special orders, such as buckles, salvers,
buttons, dish crosses and snuffer stands. Useful information about the variable
quality of the paktong available, public interest in paktong and the price of pak-
tong articles can also be found in those archives. This fresh information is un-
doubtedly important in providing a fuller picture of the story of paktong during
the late eighteenth century.
Chapter 5, entitled "Paktong and German Silver," also contains significant
contributions to a new understanding of paktong. The central theme of this
chapter is to explore whether it is possible to distinguish paktong from German
silver on the basis of compositional analysis. Pinn first discusses the composition
of paktong, pointing out that the majority of genuine eighteenth century pieces
contain about 40-50% copper, 35-45% zinc and 5-15% nickel, plus 1 to 2% iron
and traces of a few other elements, such as lead and tin. This judgement is based
on the analysis results of 129 pieces in the W. A. Pinn Collection. Gilmour and
Worrall (1995: 267) reached a similar conclusion in analyzing paktong pieces in
other collections in Britain, such as Liverpool Museum and The Royal Armour-
ies, but Pinn notes that a few paktong pieces show some unusual characteristics,
giving high copper and low zinc readings. He suggests that this may have
resulted from the intentional or accidental alteration of paktong’s composition
after its importation to the West.
Regarding the distinction between paktong and German silver, Pinn offers
the following important guidelines: paktong’s composition is concentrated
within the range of 40-50% copper, 35-45% zinc and 5-15% nickel; while
German silver is within the range of 55-65% copper, 20-25% zinc and 15-20%
nickel. These parameters are a significant contribution to our understanding of
these two alloys, especially significant for identifying genuine eighteenth
century paktong pieces. Pinn also observes that there are some anomalies (less
than 10% of the analysis results), the majority of which fit into the parameters
for German silver, but other evidence suggests that they must surely be made of
paktong. A detailed and interesting discussion of these anomalies is then given,
showing that paktong may not necessarily conform to the basic guidelines.
132 EASTM 18 (2001)
Pinn’s observation is quite acute. If we use his guidelines to look at Gilmour’s
analyses of pieces from the Liverpool and British Museums, we can also see that
some typical China-made paktong pieces have compositions that would fall into
the parameters for German silver. The existence of these exceptions is not
surprising if we realize the fact that paktong pieces were produced at several
different places rather than one place in southwestern China during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Pinn further notes that iron content could also be significant in helping to dis-
tinguish the Chinese alloy from the later European metal. This reviewer (Mei
1995: 51) had already suggested that the existence of a small amount of iron
might be regarded as a characteristic feature of Chinese paktong, in comparison
to the typical commercial German silver that usually contained no iron. But Pinn
makes it more straightforward by stating that nearly all of the genuine eighteenth
paktong pieces contain about 1% to 2.5% iron, whereas German silver wares
almost invariably contain less than 0.5% of this element. He also points out there
are exceptions, especially a small group of German silver pieces originating in
Austria that have a high iron content. In his opinion, English nickel alloy pieces
produced after about 1830 are most likely to have been made of German silver
rather than Chinese white copper.
In Chapter 6, Pinn clarifies the confusion between British plate and plated
German silver on the basis of advertisements in old newspapers, further showing
his capability of digging out useful information from various sources. He shows
us that, during the mid-nineteenth century, both plated and unplated German
silver wares were produced and traded in Europe under varied names, such as
Virginian Plate, Alpacca, Argentan and Packfong. The last name clearly
indicates the close association of German silver with Chinese paktong.
As a professional antique collector and dealer, Pinn devotes a great deal of
interest and attention to paktong and German silver pieces themselves. In the
next six chapters (Chapters 7-12), he presents a detailed discussion of paktong
and nickel alloy wares produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The themes he discussed include eighteenth century paktong candlesticks, nine-
teenth century paktong candlesticks, domestic and other wares, firegrates and
firearms, and nineteenth century nickel alloy wares. These discussions explore
the forms, styles, designs and manufacturing techniques of paktong and nickel
alloy wares, successfully showing that their range is far wider than had
previously been recognized. His research in Christie’s auction archives is
especially rewarding. It has revealed that hundreds of tutenag or paktong wares
were auctioned by Christie’s in the thirty year period commencing about 1770.
Pinn’s rich knowledge of paktong will definitely appeal to a wide audience,
especially antique collectors and museum curators.
Though the present volume is a most successful and welcome one in many
ways, some points require further comment. For example, Pinn suggests that
"Gotha White Metal" was the closest imitation to paktong, because it was made
by utilizing slag that contained a significant proportion of nickel. But no
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concrete evidence is given to support this supposition. In Chapter 4 he mentions
that Matthew Boulton had asked an associate in Germany "to learn not only the
composition but also the art of making it," but the source for this information is
not clear. Appendix I includes all letters from and to Boulton, but does not
contain a letter from Boulton to his German associate. Pinn also considers that in
the letter to His Excellency Rodney Valtravers (pp. 57-58), the white copper
Boulton talked about is the Gotha metal. However, Boulton’s letter seems to
suggest that the metal was most likely a kind of arsenic white copper rather than
a nickel alloy. Boulton clearly indicates in his letter that he was acquainted with
"a variety of methods of whitening brass with arsenic and likewise with cobalt."
This would be another interesting topic for further research.
It seems that Pinn did not pay much attention to the paktong artifacts in the
collections of Liverpool Museum and other museums in Britain. The research on
paktong carried out by Eldon Worrall for his doctorate during the mid-1990s
appears also not to have caught his attention. When he set the guidelines for
distinguishing paktong and German silver, he largely ignored the analysis results
of dozens of paktong pieces already published by Gilmour and Worrall (1995).
From the perspective of readership, it would be more stimulating to see to what
extent his guidelines can be confirmed by other analysis data. A quick check
with the analysis data offered by Gilmour and Worrall (1995: 272-4) has shown
a number of exceptions to Pinn’s guidelines, especially those typical artifacts for
Chinese markets made in the nineteenth century, such as opium pipe (AM797),
censer (AM798), door knocker (AM853) and kettle (AM856). The compositions
of these pieces clearly fall into the parameters for German silver, but they were
undoubtedly made in China with paktong and were traded to Britain sometime
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Therefore, it would seem to
be rather too simplistic to consider all those nickel alloy pieces made after mid-
1830s to be German silver, because the production of paktong in China did not
cease until the late nineteenth century. The research by Gilmour and Worrall
(1995: 268) shows that there is "an overall drop in the proportion of nickel in
paktong objects of the mid-late nineteenth century." Pinn’s work suggests that
the appearance of German silver is the reason for the overall drop of nickel. But
that seems not to be the whole picture. Further research is needed to explore
what had happened to paktong production in China since the mid-nineteenth
century.
There are also some minor errors. For example, in the text (p. 87) Pinn cor-
rectly refers the published date for Gilmour and Worrall’s paper as 1995, but in
the bibliography the published date is mistaken as 1993. Pinn also fails to give
the page numbers for research papers in the bibliography.
Although more criticisms might be put forward, none are crucial when meas-
ured against Pinn’s considerable contributions to our understandings of paktong.
The present volume stylishly combines material certain to be of great interest not
only to historians of technology but to a very wide readership.


Keith Pinn, Paktong: The Chinese Alloy in Europe, 1680-1820

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Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Translation and study by Donald J. Harper

Essential Subtleties on the Silver Sea. The Yin-hai jing-wei: A Chinese Classic on Ophthalmology. Translated and annotated by Jürgen Kovacs and Paul U. Unschuld

Cover

The Yabuuti Paradigm in the History of Chinese Science

A "Chinese Eratosthenes" Reconsidered: Chinese and Greek Calculations and Categories

Donald B. Wagner, The State and Iron Industry in Han China

David Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840-1900

Yabuuti Kiyosi, Une histoire des mathématiques chinoises

Yabuuti Kiyosi's Research on Traditional Technology in Japan

Keith Pinn, Paktong: The Chinese Alloy in Europe, 1680-1820

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