During the Song period, abscesses(癰疽) were a disease that could affect anyone regardless of their class. This study examines how people at that time explained the cause of abscesses and their efforts ...to treat them, focusing on the experiences of those who suffered from abscesses and their families. Previous research on disease history during the Song period primarily focused on ailments like colds (傷寒) and infectious diseases (瘟疫), or plagues prevalent in the southern regions of China. On the other hand, examining abscesses as a common everyday illness that could affect anyone and considering them from the perspective of patients’ experiences has remained unexplored in previous studies. To reconstruct the experiences of Song period patients, this study analyzes over sixty anecdotes related to abscesses found in Yi Jian Zhi (夷堅志) written by Hong Mai. These cases span across the mid to late 12th century, with a majority of the patients being from the literati (士人) class or connected to the literati. These anecdotes exhibit two distinct trends. One focuses on narratives surrounding the onset of abscesses, attributing their cause primarily to the patients’ lifestyle. When the cause of the abscesses was unknown, people metaphorically attributed its onset to perceived blasphemy against God, an act of killing, negligence in duties, or other wrongdoings. This trend is evident among the literati class in particular, where abscesses were often linked to factors such as excessive legal executions or exploitation, and even acts of killing people. Except for those cases, in explaining the cause of abscesses in commoners, there were instances caused by a pediculus infestation, while in case of literati, Dansha (丹砂) poisoning was a common cause. It is interesting to note that the narrative tradition, prevalent in official history biographies, which attributes the onset of abscesses to worries and resentment, was not evident in written records such as Yi Jian Zhi. Furthermore, the detailed description of external similarities, portraying abscesses as traces of punishment from the underground realm (陰界), is a narrative characteristic that solidified such stereotypical perceptions. The literati's notion that they should alert people through these related anecdotes contributed to the spread of this perception. Another trend in these anecdotes was centered around narratives of abscess treatment, where the focus shifted primarily to seeking “doctors,” unlike the metaphorical explanations of abscess onset causes and processes. When afflicted with abscesses, people generally sought out those renowned surgeons, known as Yang-yi (瘍醫), and those famous for treating abscesses. In local communities, individuals who had “received the divine secrets of abscesses,” those possessing their own mysterious abscesses cures, and those famous for generations for treating abscesses by using stone acupuncture were active. Such information about them was shared within the local societies. Their treatment predominantly consisted of surgical procedures to lance abscesses and drain pus, which often led patients to endure significant pain during the treatment process. In many cases, such patients sought treatment from well-known local surgeons and abscess specialists who surgically treated them. The literati, who are said to have influenced the development of pulse-centered medical and academic medicine in China, also sought out surgeons for abscess treatment. Medical formularies compiled by the court as well as privately published ones rarely mentioned surgical methods utilizing tools. The fact that surgical techniques were utilized in local regions at that time indicates a disparity between the official medical practices documented in texts and the practical methods employed in local communities. An analysis of approximately sixty anecdotes related to abscesses shows that abscesses were characterized by unknown causes and excruciating pain. Their onset was often attributed to the patient’s lifestyle and wrongdoings, and they were also perceived as punishment for one’s wrongdoings. However, as it was a disease where treatment effects could be relatively easily observed through surgical procedures, there was a proactive utilization of the locally formed treatment environment, preferring surgical interventions over relying on religious powers. Contrary to the medical trends and methods outlined in medical literature, surgical treatments were prevalent as the chosen method of treatment among the population in local communities. It appears that the realities experienced, reasoned, and shared by people in the Song period regarding the perception and response to abscesses did not necessarily align with those of mainstream medical practices. Moreover, despite attributing the onset of abscesses to one’s wrongdoing, there was a preference for seeking surgeons or Yang-yi (瘍醫) over religious methods in their treatment, reflecting a characteristic of the local medical culture surrounding abscesses during the Song period.
In this paper, the modification methods of the Chinese Christian painting created by the missionaries in the late Ming Dynasty (1573–1644) were analyzed with the Chinese Catholic studies of the “Song ...nianzhu guicheng” and the “Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie”. After carefully studying the differences between the Chinese Christian painting and the original European version, the study shows that these Chinese Christian paintings were integrated with the Chinese literati paintings’ elements and literati symbols, which include the “Yudiancun” (raindrop texture stroke), “Pimacun” (hemp-fiber texture stroke), “landscape screen” (painted screens with natural landscapes), and the mark of Chinese famous literati such as Dong Qichang. These adjustments conducted by missionaries aimed to make religious paintings more in line with literati aesthetics, which could build connections between the missionaries and the literati community for proselytization. However, the missionaries neglected that the literati community certainly would not sacrifice the existing social order and the vested interest brought by the current Confucian culture to support new ideas of “liberty” and “equality” in the Catholic doctrine, which caused a huge setback in the missionary work since the Nanjing Teaching Case in 1616. This research makes significant contributions to the understanding of cultural exchanges in the 17th century through a detailed exploration of the adjustments made by missionaries in the visual representations within Chinese Catholic literature.
Starting from a pure-image perspective, using machine learning in emotion analysis methods to study artwork is a new cross-cutting approach in the field of literati painting and is an effective ...supplement to research conducted from the perspectives of aesthetics, philosophy, and history. This study constructed a literati painting emotion dataset. Five classic deep learning models were used to test the dataset and select the most suitable model, which was then improved upon for literati painting emotion analysis based on accuracy and model characteristics. The final training accuracy rate of the improved model was 54.17%. This process visualizes the salient feature areas of the picture in machine vision, analyzes the visualization results, and summarizes the connection law between the picture content of the Chinese literati painting and the emotion expressed by the painter. This study validates the possibility of combining deep learning with Chinese cultural research, provides new ideas for the combination of new technology and traditional Chinese literati painting research, and provides a better understanding of the Chinese cultural spirit and advanced factors.
During the explanation of the origin of ‘prescription (醫方),’ an interesting phenomena in the accumulation and diffusion of medical knowledge in the Song Period is that many prescriptions contain ...narratives with bizarre elements, such as those given by God through dreams, received from ‘strange people (異人),’ or from animals appearing in these dreams. This study features an anecdote called ‘zhiguai (志怪) Medical Cases,’ which contains bizarre elements in the dissemination process of prescription, narrative of the treatment experience, and specific content of prescription, called a ‘zhiguai prescription.’ In previous research, such prescriptions were often called a ‘God-delivered prescription (神授方).’ However, a ‘zhiguai prescription’ appears adequate because it includes a number of factors beyond the ‘God-delivered prescription.’ This study examines the background of the intensive emergence of massive zhiguai medical cases in the Song Period, reviews the characteristics and significance of the zhiguai prescriptions in the context of postwar medical history, and finally investigates the influence of the bizarre narrative by tracing the dissemination of related prescriptions. This study found that the zhiguai prescription experiences were different from the so-called ‘academic’ that was formed in the Song Period, and it was ‘another’ method of medical knowledge dissemination based on their narratives. The emergence of many zhiguai medical cases in the Song Period, especially in the Southern Song period, is related to the activities of the literati official (士大夫). The literati officials of the Song Period frequently witnessed strange or anomalous phenomena in their daily life. They relied on them to relieve the powerlessness of reality and left records. In addition, unlike the authors of the zhiguai genre of the previous era, they maintained an attitude faithful to the facts when recording them. The massive appearance of the zhiguai medical cases in the Song Period was the result of the combination of the intention of the literati official who valued medicine their medical knowledge to spread the awareness, their reliance on the strange or anomalous phenomena, and their attitude that emphasized a realistic narrative. The significance of the zhiguai prescription of the Song Period can be found in the supplementation and diffusion of existing medical knowledge. In previous research, these were collectively described as ‘public experienced methods’; however, various characteristics were found by analyzing the nineteen cases of zhiguai medical cases in Yijianzhi (夷堅志) by comparing them with the related contents of the herbal medicine and prescription books of the time. In the use of herbal medicines for specific diseases, there are cases that are unusual or meaningful when compared with existing herbal medicine or prescription books, and thus, this became a decisive basis for the expansion of herbal knowledge in the later period. Moreover, new treatment methods that were not often seen in medical books at the time were introduced, and they have been continuously transmitted to the medical and herbal medicine books since then. Additionally, this study also found cases that were focused on promoting medical knowledge that was not well-known, and the knowledge that must be known, although they were recorded in the existing medical and herbal medicine books. The record of the zhiguai medical cases evidently had its meanings in supplementing and disseminating existing medical knowledge. Prescriptions in the record of the zhiguai medical cases of the Song Period were subsequently recorded in various medical and herbal medicine books, and they handed down until the Ming and Qing period. Later, when a zhiguai prescription was described in a medical book, its bizarre narrative was not omitted, leaving a trace in the name of the prescription. It can be seen that this bizarre narrative served as a decisive opportunity for the prescription to be transmitted later, considering that existing medical books mentioned the related narratives in Yijianzhi (夷堅志) as the source for these subsequent transmissions. When discussing the characteristics of the Song Period in Chinese medical history, many studies state that a strong academic medical trend was centered on the pulse and internal medicine, referring to the development of printing technology, the literati official’s interest in medicine, and the compilation of medical books. The contents and dissemination of the zhiguai medical cases of the Southern Song confirm ‘another’ tradition of medical knowledge transmission that relied on the bizarre phenomena and its narratives in Chinese medical history. Its transmission to the Ming and Qing period signifies the continuation of this tradition into later times. The fact that the zhiguai medical cases were later recorded in medical books in the Ming and Qing period clearly shows the dynamism of how knowledge of the ‘case’ affects the knowledge expansion of medicine, thereby revealing the power of ‘another’ tradition called the ‘zhiguai’ narratives.
The efforts of the state and the literati, such as the implementation of beneficent politics(仁政) and the rectification of folk customs, led to the alteration of the medical environment throughout the ...Song period. Epidemics with a severe impact that occurred frequently were what started the transition. Urbanization, increased transit accessibility, and population growth have all contributed to the emergence of epidemics. In addition, a disease that was indigenous to southern China, where regional development and population expansion were focused, started to spread widely. When an epidemic spread, the local population occasionally received medical care, but most of the time they relied on spiritual care from the neighborhood shaman or spirit medium. Spiritual treatment is utilized to treat malignant infectious diseases, even though professional doctors primarily focus on treating patients with traditional medicine.
By editing and releasing publications on medicine at the national level, the Song dynasty government and intellectuals encouraged the development and transmission of efficient treatment procedures to advance medical practices. Meanwhile, folk remedies or medical prescriptions discovered by renowned scholars like Su Shi(蘇軾) and Shen Kuo((沈括) were included in the medical book and made available to the general public. Although there was a difference of opinion between the Song government and intellectuals, they commonly rejected shamanistic treatment and pursued the spread of medicine treatment through the transmission of codified medical knowledge.
In the end, the spread of the epidemic and the subsequent transmission and development of Song dynasty medicine had a significant impact on the emergence of codified medicine treatment, but this was not solely to advance medical knowledge; it also served to further their political and ideological objectives. As a result, the following Jin(金) and Yuan( 元) dynasties’ physicians instantly criticized the Song dynasty’s medical advancements. It is indisputable, however, that the medical development of the Song dynasty had a considerable influence on later Chinese medical practice in that it established the ideological superiority of formal and orthodox therapy over traditional and heterodox spiritual care.
This essay examines the social, cultural, and economic life of Kawai Koume (1804–1889), a bushi housewife and artist living in the Wakayama castle town of Kishu domain in the final years of the ...Tokugawa era and the early years of Meiji. Using a diary that Koume kept over a period of at least fifty years, the essay examines the ways in which Koume’s art was integrated with her daily life as household manager, and it explores the transformations of those relationships after the Meiji Restoration. While acknowledging the reality of class and gender ideologies and their effects on daily life, the essay focuses on Koume’s determination to contribute meaningfully to her family’s social, cultural, and economic life. And in the wake of a decade of disruption and transformation following the Meiji Restoration, it points to the unsung heroism of many women in forging new paths to economic recovery and self-sufficiency.
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