This volume rethinks the role of the Sino-Japanese medical classics during the early modern period in light of antiquarianism, languages, and medical philology. Philology in particular allows the authors to address the changing meaning of the same term, which often reflected well-known metaphors in the source language that were transposed to the target language. Each essay touches on the reliability of received medical texts and their modern fate.

Benjamin Elman, Ph.D. (1980), University of Pennsylvania, is Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University. His publications include On Their Own Terms: Science in China 1550-1900 (Harvard, 2005), A Cultural History of Modern Science in China (Harvard, 2006), Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2013).