‘In this rich and comprehensive history of acupuncture, Roberta Bivins brings to light the fascinating tale of British attitudes toward the Chinese and their medicine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Meticulously researched and engagingly told, this story engages an ambivalent prehistory to our current respect for acupuncture.’ - Londa Schiebinger, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History of Science, Pennsylvania State University In 1825, an English Earl, crippled with pain and despairing of his usual physicians, invited a young and unconventional doctor into his home. Days later, the Earl was relieved, and the doctor rich. To celebrate his remarkable recovery, the nobleman re-named his favourite racehorse ‘Acupuncture’, to honour the technique that cured him. In an engaging account, Roberta Bivins vivifies the characters, texts and events of acupuncture’s (often surprising) three hundred year history in Britain, and begins to explain acupuncture’s enduring appeal. Contents: >Introduction: Cultural Specificity & the Cross-Cultural Transmission of Expert Knowledge >Expectations & Expertise: Early British Responses to Chinese Medicine & Technology >The Needle Transfixed: Ten Rhyne, Kaempfer & the European Gaze >Sharpening the Needle: British Interpretations of Acupuncture, 1802-1830 >Networks & Innovations: The Persistence of British Acupuncture, 1828-1890 >Conclusions: Continuities in Cross-cultural Medicine >Notes >Bibliography >Index

215 x 140mm

280pp

(For this item please quote stock ID 16513)

Related Subject Areas:

Acupuncture      TCM History