Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series – serie

This volume uniquely looks into the practice of medical care in the medieval world, particularly amongst the Jewish communities of Egypt. It examines the medicinal prescriptions, lists of materia medica and letters between physicians, pharmacists and patients found in the Cairo Genizah. Most histories of medieval medicine of the eastern Mediterranean are based upon theoretical Arabic writings. Here the authors examine, analyze and contextualize these medieval prescriptions also from the perspective of ethnobotanists, and as a result, provide an innovative insight into the everyday practice of medieval medicine and the historical use of the medicinal substances in the Medieval Mediterranean world. The result is a much needed contribution to medical-historical scholarship interested in the everyday practice of medicine of the common people of the medieval period.

In the early 14th century, a court nutritionist called Hu Sihui wrote his Yinshan Zhengyao, a dietary and nutritional manual for the Chinese Mongol Empire. Hu Sihui, a man apparently with a Turkic linguistic background, included recipes, descriptions of food items, and dietary medical lore including selections from ancient texts, and thus reveals to us the full extent of an amazing cross-cultural dietary; here recipes can be found from as far as Arabia, Iran, India and elsewhere, next to those of course from Mongolia and China. Although the medical theories are largely Chinese, they clearly show Near Eastern and Central Asian influence. This long-awaited expanded and revised edition of the much-acclaimed A Soup for the Qan sheds (yet) new light on our knowledge of west Asian influence on China during the medieval period, and on the Mongol Empire in general.

Housni Alkhateeb Shehada's Mamluks and Animals: Veterinary Medicine in Medieval Islam is the first comprehensive study of veterinary medicine, its practitioners and its patients in the medieval Islamic world, with special emphasis on the Mamluk period (1250-1517). Based on a large variety of sources, it is a history of a scientific field that is also examined from social and cultural perspectives. Horses, as well as birds of prey used for hawking and falconry, were at the centre of the veterinary literature of that period, but the treatment and cure of other animals was not totally neglected. The Mamluk period is presented here as the time when veterinary medicine reached its pinnacle in medieval Islam and often even surpassed human medicine.

Based on several research seminars, the authors in this volume provide fresh perspectives of the intellectual and cultural history of East Asian medicine, 1550-1800. They use new sources, make new connections, and re-examine old assumptions, thereby interrogating whether and why European medical modernity is an appropriate standard for delineating the modern fate of East Asia’s medical classics. The unique importance of early modern Europe in the history of modern medicine should not be used to gloss over the equally unique and thus different developments in East Asia. Each paper offers an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of East Asian medicine, namely, the relationship between medical texts, medical practice, and practitioner identity. Furthermore, the essays in this volume are especially valuable for directing our attention to the movement of medical texts between different polities and cultures of early modern East Asia, especially China and Japan. Of particular interest are the interactions, similarities, and differences between medical thinkers across East Asia.Contributors include: Susan Burns, Benjamin A. Elman, Asaf Goldschmidt, Angela KC Leung, Federico Marcon, MAYANAGI Makoto, Fabien Simonis, Daniel Trambaiolo, and Mathias Vigouroux.

Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions considers paths to self-cultivation and salvation that are patterned on human embryological development or procreative imagery in the religions of China and Japan.Focusing on Taoism, Esoteric Buddhism, Shinto, Shugendō, and local religious traditions, the contributors to the volume provide new insight into how the body’s generative processes are harnessed as powerful metaphors for spiritual attainment. This volume offers an in-depth examination of the religious dimensions of embryology and reproductive imagery, topics that have been hitherto solely approached through the lens of the history of medicine.Contributors include: Brigitte Baptandier, Catherine Despeux, Grégoire Espesset, Christine Mollier, Fabrizio Pregadio, Dominic Steavu, Lucia Dolce, Bernard Faure, Iyanaga Nobumi, Anna Andreeva, Kigensan Licha, Gaynor Sekimori.

In Naturopathy in South India – Clinics between Professionalization and Empowerment, Eva Jansen offers a rich ethnographic account of current naturopathic thinking and practices, and examines its complex history, multiple interpretations, and antagonisms. This book presents two major forms of Naturopathy in contemporary South India: On one side, a scientific, professional branch models themselves after allopathic practitioners. On the other side, a group of ideologists uses an approach to patient treatment that is grounded in the principles of simplicity, transparency, a critique of globalization, and a focus on patient empowerment. Jansen discusses the current political and medical clash between Naturopaths in South India from the perspectives of practitioners, employees, the media and patients.

The Jewel of Annual Astrology is an encyclopaedic treatise on Tājika or Sanskritized Perso-Arabic astrology, dealing particularly with the casting and interpretation of anniversary horoscopes. Authored in 1649 CE by Balabhadra Daivajña, court astrologer to Shāh Shujāʿ – governor of Bengal and second son of the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān – it casts light on the historical development of the Tājika school by extensive quotations from earlier works spanning five centuries.With this first-ever scholarly edition and translation of a Tājika text, Martin Gansten makes a significant contribution not only to the study of an important but little known knowledge tradition, but also to the intellectual historiography of Asia and the transmission of horoscopic astrology in the medieval and early modern periods.

Body and Cosmos is a collection of articles published on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Professor Emeritus Kenneth G. Zysk. The articles revolve thematically around the early Indian medical and astral sciences, which have been at the center of Professor Zysks long and esteemed career within the discipline of Indology.The volume is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the medical sciences, the second part to the astral sciences, and the third part to cross-cultural interactions between India and the West, which runs like an undercurrent throughout the work of Professor Zysk.The articles are written by internationally renowned Indological scholars and will be of value to students and researchers alike.

Science and Society in the Sanskrit World contains seventeen essays that cover a kaleidoscopic array of classical Sanskrit scientific disciplines, such as the astral sciences, grammar, jurisprudence, theology, and hermeneutics. The volume foregrounds a unifying theme to Christopher Z. Minkowski’s intellectual oeuvre: that scholars’ scientific endeavors are inseparable from the social worlds that shaped those scholars’ lives.Contributors are: Anne Blackburn, Johannes Bronkhorst, Jonathan Duquette, Robert Goldman, Setsuro Ikeyama, Stephanie Jamison, Takanori Kusuba, John Lowe, Clemency Montelle, Valters Negribs, Rosalind O'Hanlon, Patrick Olivelle, Deven Patel, Kim Plofker, Frederick Smith, Barbora Sojkova, Thomas Trautmann, Elizabeth Tucker, Anand Venkatkrishnan, and Dominik Wujastyk.

This scholarly work examines the history and practice of animal omen divination in South Asia, comparing it to similar traditions in Mesopotamia and classical antiquity. It provides critical editions and translations of relevant texts, including chapters from the Gārgīyajyotiṣa, Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna, and the Bṛhatsaṃhitā, focusing on the interpretation of bird calls and behaviour. The study incorporates ornithological and natural historical information to enhance the understanding of the omens and their regional origins. Furthermore, it explores the evolution of omen literature and the transmission of knowledge across cultures and time periods, highlighting the enduring significance of sound and direction in divination practices.