Between the Living and the Dead: Trauma Medicine and Forensic Medicine in the Mid-Qing

This paper analyzes the influence of forensic medicine on therapeutic medicine through a case study of Qian Xiuchang and Hu Tingguang, two Chinese doctors who specialized in treating traumatic injuries. During the early nineteenth century, both men compiled medical treatises that sought to improve on a scholarly model of “rectifying bones” articulated in 1742 by the Imperially-Compiled Golden Mirror of the Medical Lineage. Both texts also incorporated information from forensic medicine, including official inquest diagrams and checklists promulgated by the Qing government. I show that they drew on these forensic materials to help address two interlinked medical issues: understanding the effects of injury on different parts of the body, and clarifying the location and form of the body’s bones. Overall, I suggest that the exchange of ideas between the realm of therapeutic medicine and forensic medicine was an important epistemological strategy that doctors and officials alike employed to improve their knowledge of the material body.     

震动晚清政局的云南报销案

在云南报销案期间,御史弹劾军机大臣受贿巨万,王文韶因此离开了军机处,李鸿藻承认接受过“炭敬”。奕主张严查“炭敬”之类的贿赂,翁同和等与之多次激烈辩论,使晚清政局产生了不小的震动。最后,慈禧还是采纳了翁同和等人的意见,“炭敬”之类的贿赂不予追究,因为这一类的贿赂由来已久,官场习以为常,清政府的腐败已经积重难返,牵涉的人太多,已经查不胜查了。