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

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 medic...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Volker Scheid
Format: Book
Published: Berghahn Books 2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary: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