As an undergraduate history student, I wanted to do a paper on the the Kangxi Emperor's experiments with smallpox. I unfortunately could find no primary sources translated to English. While this is not entirely unsurprising that there may not be enough for a 25 page paper, I was a bit shocked that I could find absolutely nothing. I'm aware, vaguely, that we lost much during the cultural revolution; before that, in various fires over hundreds of years during different imperial eras etc. The pandemic has made me much more interested in Chinese medical history, and I'm wondering if any experts can point me toward sources. If they're not translated in English please give me a summary from your own readings of primary documents / research. I'm not very interested in secondary sources unless they heavily and directly quote from primary documents. This can be from any imperial era, not just the one I was interested in for my paper (I've already picked a different topic; I'm just curious if both me and the librarian I asked for help were incompetent at finding anything).
Infectious Disease Question
Probably the most important Ming dynasty text on infectious diseases is by Wu Youxing/Wu Youke (1582-1652 CE – Chinese physicians often have 2 or 3 names), as Charles Buck discusses the theory of Li Qi (usually translated as pestilential qi (air))
“A native of Jiangsu province, Wu You-ke (Wu You-xing, 1582–1652) lived at a time when both poverty and epidemic disease were rife. He was considered to bea follower of the Jin-Yuan master Zhang Cong-zheng, founder of the attack and drain style (gong xie pai ), because his primary clinical orientation was the expulsion of xie qi from the body. Between 1408 and 1643 there had been repeated epidemics and that of 1641 had spread particularly widely across the country. According to Unschuld, these epidemics typically involved pains in the head, back, eyes and hips, deafness, vomiting, alternating hot and cold fits, urinary retention, constipation, abdominal pain and unpleasant sensations of fullness. Witnessing these warm febrile epidemics and their very high mortality rate, Wu You-ke wrote:
“…since ancient times there have been few discussions devoted to wen yi warmth epidemics]; practitioners simply read and regurgitate the Shang Han Lun. However, in our clinical practice what we see most often is wen yi; only 1 or 2 per cent are actually shang han cases… The difference between wen yi and shang han [cold attack], though, is like the difference between the sky and soil.””
Buck continues
“Having an understanding of the contagious nature of the pathogens as well as a highly pragmatic outlook, Wu advised physicians facing epidemic wen yi disorders to think first of all about prevention of spread: “[We should] spend less time on theory; instead we should interrupt the transmission of pathogenic qi by taking account of the way it enters the body, the parts of the body it attacks and the way it progresses. In this way we can offer effective practical help based on everyday experience.””
That’s a small introduction to him, I would read that whole chapter for more info, and if you are more interested in how this school developed I would recommend reading Marta Hansens work on epidemics.
Only small works about warm disease have been translated, included the Wen Re Lun by Ye Tianshi which was translated by Charles Chace in the lantern, The Shi Re Lun translated by Volker Schied just recently. The big works, such as the Wen Yi Lun 瘟疫論, Wenbing Tiaobian 溫病條辨, Wenre Jingwei溫熱經緯, are all untranslated unfortunately.
References
Charles Buck (2014) - Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
Sorry for the late reply, I usually try and keep an eye on these type of threads.