Stone Gorge Yi: Using Medicine to Reconfigure Korea’s Place in the World in the Early Twentieth Century

• In Event: Re-spatializing Center and Periphery in East Asian Medicine

Abstract

As Korea grappled with the dilemma of modernity at the turn of the twentieth century, medicine became a key arena in the debate on her place in the world. One scholar-cum-physician participating in the discussion spurred by the shock of the loss of the Choson world, Stone Gorge Yi, or Sok Kok (1855-1923), agonized over the disruptions brought by modernity. A century on, he enjoys growing popularity in South Korea in the twenty-first century. In Sok Kok’s perspective, Korea was not peripheral, but central to his project of civilization, based on Han Dynasty Confucianism, and the seminal medical text, Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor. This paper places Sok Kok in his world, in a Korea central to the East Asian region as a whole. Korea was not only the key node in northeast Asia, but also the home to a large Chinese community, and a fast growing Japanese population. Moreover, American Presbyterian missionaries secured a rapidly growing following, thus laying the foundation for western medicine in Korea. A frustrated Sok Kok railed against the ruling class for their insipidness. His response was to demonstrate that Confucian morality was a practical exercise. Amidst a diverse medical marketplace, he thus took to medical practice in later life. His brand of medicine, derived from Han dynasty revanchism, rested on robust challenge to orthodox theories. He advocated strengthening of people’s heart/minds, as a core element in strengthening Korea as a civilization, and therefore acting as a model for East Asia as a whole.

Author

• James Flowers, Johns Hopkins University