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Searching for the Dao of Medicine: Landscapes of Thoughtful Practice in Late Imperial China

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Searching for the Dao of Medicine

Landscapes of Thoughtful Practice in Late Imperial China

Volker Scheid

396 pages, 9 figs., 3 tables, bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-83695-634-1 $150.00/£115.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (August 2026)

eISBN 978-1-83695-636-5 eBook Not Yet Published


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Reviews

“This book is an extraordinary work of scholarship that contributes in an innovative way to several academic fields.  Sinologists and historians of medicine and science, practitioners and scholars of Chinese medicine, East Asian philosophers, Buddhists and Daoists, and sociologists/anthropologists of religion and medicine – all these fields have much to learn from this magisterial study.” • Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago

“This is a groundbreaking synthesis of anthropological insights, theoretical scholarship in the history of science and philosophy, and primary historical sources in late imperial China from the 14th century to the present.” • Marta Hanson, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU)

Description

In late imperial China, debates over how virtuosity in medical practice might be cultivated unfolded within a world that connected physicians to scholars, poets, calligraphers, Buddhist monks, Daoist life-cultivation experts and military strategists. This book traces these debates, showing how medicine was imagined as akin to poetry, how clinical insight was shaped through meditative bodily practices and how practitioners pursued empirical investigation. At the same time, medicine and the body became vital conceptual resources for intellectuals seeking to address broader social and philosophical questions

Volker Scheid is a Visiting Scholar at the China Centre, University of Kiel. He was previously Professor of East Asian Medicines and Director of EASTmedicine, a transdisciplinary research group for the study of East Asian medicines, at the University of Westminster, London. He has published two earlier monographs on the history of Chinese medicine in late imperial and contemporary China, a textbook of Chinese medicine formulas, and over thirty papers in peer-reviewed journals. Besides his academic career, he has been a practitioner of Chinese medicine since 1984.

Subject: Medical AnthropologyCultural Studies (General)
Area: Asia


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