ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Transmission of Modern Eurasian Materia Medica Knowledge: A Focus on the Xiyao Dacheng

• In Event: Science, Knowledge, and Technology in Modern China: Vernacularization and Global Diffusion

English Abstract

Xiyao Dacheng (“The Great Compendium of Western Medicine”), originally titled A Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics by the British physician John Forbes Royle (1798–1858), was jointly translated by John Fryer (1839–1928) and Zhao Yuanyi (1840–1902) and published in 1887. This work is voluminous and rich in content, documenting approximately 531 types of medicinal substances derived from plants, animals, and minerals (excluding synthetic preparations). It stands as one of the most significant materia medica works from the transitional period of modern Western medicine, as well as the largest foreign pharmaceutical text translated into Chinese prior to the 20th century. This study aims to comprehensively examine the knowledge sources of Xiyao Dacheng from both textual and visual perspectives. It explores the process by which traditional medical knowledge was generated, transformed, and developed on the eve of comprehensive scientific advancement in the West, along with the experience of knowledge integration, synthesis, and transmission within a global historical context. The work also reflects key characteristics of its transformative era. Following the publication of Xiyao Dacheng, neither Western pharmacological works nor later Chinese translations of Western materia medica retained the distinctive style of Xiyao Dacheng, which integrated classical and contemporary knowledge in a connected framework. It can thus be argued that the materia medica knowledge encapsulated in Xiyao Dacheng—spanning extensive temporal and spatial dimensions—underwent a complex process of comprehension, compilation, rewriting, revision, transmission, and translation. This process exemplifies the intricate nature of pharmaceutical knowledge production and cross-cultural exchange during a period of significant transition.

Author

• Ming CHEN, The School of Foreign Languages, Peking University