满文人体器官

‘Manchu Anatomy’: Anatomical Knowledge and the Jesuits in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century China Daniel Asen* Summary. Beginning in the last decade of the seventeenth century, the French Jesuits Joachim Bouvet and Dominique Parrenin instructed the Kangxi Emperor in contemporary anatomical knowl- edge. Parrenin’s instruction resulted in a Manchu anatomical atlas containing Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. This paper uses this case to examine the role of anatomy in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European understandings of China and its medicine. I argue that the auth- ority which Bouvet and Parrenin afforded anatomical knowledge gained from dissection informed their comparisons of Chinese and European medical learning. I also examine ways in which illus- trations of this atlas were made to demonstrate the certainty of European anatomy and its applica- bility to Chinese bodies. Production of the ‘Manchu Anatomy’ was thus an important moment in the process through which anatomy became a category in European understandings of China and its medicine during and after the eighteenth century. Keywords: anatomy; China; Jesuits; translation; visual representation Beginning in the last decade of the seventeenth century, the French Jesuits Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) and Dominique Parrenin (1665–1741) instructed the Kangxi Emperor (reigned 1662–1722) in some of the most current anatomical knowledge in Europe.1 Bouvet had left for China in March 1685 as part of the ‘King’s Mathematicians’, a group of six Jesuits affiliated with the Acade´mie Royale des Sciences.2 With assurances that their data would conform to new Galilean methods of establishing geographical data, they were expected to contribute to the scientific work of the Acade´mie. The mission was also intended to counter the influence of Portuguese missionaries at the Qing capital and bring praise to Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715).3 Before leaving for *Fayerweather Hall 611, 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, Mail Code: 2527, New York, NY 10027-7039, USA. E-mail: dsa2108@columbia.edu 1Clod-Hansen 1928; Johnsson 1928; Young 1974; Saunders and Lee 1981; Walravens 1996; Watanabe 2005. 2Hsia in O’Malley et al. (eds) 1999, p. 244. For biographical information on Bouvet, see Pfister 1932–4, p. 433. For Parrenin, see Pfister 1932–4, p. 501. The spelling ‘Parennin’ appears often in the secondary literature as well as in Lettres E´difiantes et Curieuses (1703–76). According to Pfister, he signed his name ‘Parrenin’. See Pfister 1932–4, p. 501. 3Swiderski 1981, p. 135; Han in Hashimoto et al. (eds) 1995, p. 489; Jami in Hashimoto et al. (eds) 1995, p. 495–6. & The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/shm/hkn097 Advance Access published 20 February 2009 Social History of Medicine Vol. 22, No. 1 pp. 23–44 China, the group prepared themselves in fields of knowledge thought to be of interest to the Chinese, one of which was anatomy.4 Arriving in Beijing in February 1688, Bouvet and Jean-Franc¸ois Gerbillon (1654–1707) were put into the service of the Kangxi Emperor, instructing him in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy.5 When a ‘most dangerous distemper’ interrupted the Emperor’s studies in philosophy, the Emperor grew interested in the workings of the human body. Bouvet responded by producing materials based upon European studies of anatomy with illustrations of the body. With lessons incomplete at the time of his departure from Beijing in 1693, the Emperor requested that Bouvet return with other missionaries to serve at court.6 In response, ten missionaries, five of whom would enter the Emperor’s service, were dis- patched to China.7 One was Dominique Parrenin, who would continue the Emperor’s instruction in anatomy. Providing various services to the Kangxi and Yongzheng (reigned 1722–35) Emperors, Parrenin lived in China until his death in 1741. During this time, he oversaw the translation into Manchu of a contemporary work of French anatomy, which included William Harvey’s (1578–1657) discovery of the circulation of the blood.8 Parrenin sent one of the four completed copies of his translation to the Acade´mie in 1723 under the title Ge ti ciowan lu bithe ‘Complete Record of Anatomy’. Nine copies in varying degrees of completion are the only evidence that remains of the translated anatomy which emerged from this episode.9 Collectively, they are known in English as the ‘Manchu Anatomy’. The case of the ‘Manchu Anatomy’ in many ways demonstrates the complexities of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century ‘Jesuit science’ as it was practised and con- sumed in both Europe and China. The anatomical projects of Bouvet and Parrenin were part of an effort to spread the gospel in China through conversion of the Kangxi Emperor. Proficiency in Manchu and expertise in knowledge which piqued the Emperor’s interest gave the Jesuits the access needed to bring about this goal. Bouvet and Parrenin presented their anatomical works as important bodies of knowledge which the Emperor either lacked or possessed in imperfect form. The Jesuits used illustrations with textual explanations to demonstrate anatomical facts and argue that their own anatomical knowl- edge was applicable to Chinese bodies and essential for progress in Chinese healing. As we will see, Parrenin implicitly made Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood the basis of his claims to true knowledge of the workings of the body. While Bouvet did not discuss the sources of his anatomical certainty as explicitly, we can infer from his use of Joseph-Guichard Du Verney’s (1648–1730) anatomical work10 and the terms in which he described his conception of the body that he too grounded his 4Le Comte 1698, p. 483. 5Treutlein 1941, p. 438; Bouvet 1699, pp. 57–8. 6Bouvet 1699, p. 102. 7Treutlein 1941, p. 438. 8Walravens 1996 suggests that the project was completed by 1715. 9Hanson 2003, p. 24. 10See Guerrini 2003, p. 590 for a brief discussion of an example of Du Verney’s anatomical work which explicates purpose. As Cunningham (2003, p. 57). argues, it was inquiry into the teleologies informing parts of the body which could give anatomy the status of a ‘science’. For more on this point, see my discussion of Bouvet’s anatomical instruction below. 24 Daniel Asen knowledge-claims in the philosophical and, ultimately, teleological modes of inquiry into the body which Andrew Cunningham has broadly classified as ‘old anatomy’.11 In their writings and in the translated anatomy which they helped to produce, assertions of the certainty of their own anatomical knowledge were made through direct claims, subtle rhetorical devices, and visual representation of Chinese bodies in anatomical terms. Of course, the shape that their anatomical instruction took and the meanings of the translated texts and images which they produced must be viewed as negotiated and potentially multiple.12 The Kangxi Emperor played an active role in producing the ‘Manchu Anatomy’ and then managing its circulation, doing so in order to further his own imperial ends.13 Even if the illustrations of the ‘Manchu Anatomy’ manifest ways of knowing the body which the Jesuits were attempting to transmit, the Emperor’s own ‘reading’ of the images is not knowable through the Jesuits’ writings, a fact which exemplifies the ‘multifaceted’ nature of the Kangxi–Jesuit encounter.14 I will return to this point in my discussion of the techniques of visual representation used in the ‘Manchu Anatomy’. Even if the Kangxi Emperor’s instruction in anatomy does represent what Florence Hsia calls ‘science in service to religion’ as a strategy which informed the Jesuits’ China mission, the religious implications of the episode appear slightly differently when viewed from outside the walls of the Qing court.15 The Jesuits’ accounts of the Kangxi Emperor’s study of anatomy and the translated atlas which resulted were disseminated through Bouvet’s Portrait historique de l’empereur de la Chine (1697) as well as Parrenin’s contri- butions to Lettres E´difiantes et Curieuses (1703–76). Viewed within the context of the broad attempts of the Jesuits to ‘[win] or [retain] the cultural allegiance of the learned’ in Europe through published genres which provided knowledge of natural phenomena and foreign lands, the writings of Bouvet and Parrenin appear also as implicit assertions of the relevance of the Jesuits, their foreign missions, and their Catholic theology.16 In their writings both claimed varying degrees of success at court, producing at times awkward accounts of the Kangxi Emperor’s acceptance of their anatomical truth claims. Finally, even though Bouvet and Parrenin operated (and published) at a time when the authority of Jesuit natural philosophers was becoming increasingly vulnerable, both seem to have been viewed as legitimate sources of scientific and, more broadly, ‘cultural’ knowledge by intellectuals in Europe.17 Their writings formed part of a growing edifice of knowledge in the form of travel accounts which were becoming important sources 11Cunningham 2003. 12See, for example, Standaert in O’Malley et al. (ed.) 1999, pp. 359–60 on this point. 13Jami 2002. 14Jami 2002, p. 45. 15Hsia in O’Malley (ed.) 1999, p. 247. 16Harris 1996, pp. 307–8. 17For example, Hsia argues that Thomas Gouye’s (1650–1725) compilation and publication of the astro- nomical observations made by the members of the 1685 mission shows that ‘the evaluation and revision of the Jesuits’ work in terms of Academy specifications and concerns emphasized the assimilation of French Jesuit science to French academic science’. See Hsia in O’Malley et al. (eds) 1999, p. 248. The general observations made by Bouvet and Parrenin were cited in numerous works, including those of Vol- taire (1694–1778) and Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755). See, for example, Swiderski 1980–1 and Rowbotham 1932, p. 1052. ‘Manchu Anatomy’: Anatomical Knowledge and the Jesuits 25 of information about China.18 It is in this sense that the case of the ‘Manchu Anatomy’ can be viewed as part of the larger story of early modern European knowledge of China and Chinese medicine. The writings of Bouvet and Parrenin fuelled the perception of European observers that Chinese knowledge of anatomy was confused, imaginative or completely false.19 Beyond the intentions of their religious mission, the written accounts of Bouvet and Parrenin were thus productive of China and Chinese medicine as objects of European knowledge and of anatomy as part of the framework in which comparison would occur. Anatomy Lessons of Joachim Bouvet Bouvet’s account of the Kangxi Emperor’s study of anatomy appeared in his Portrait historique de l’empereur de la Chine (1697). In this work, Bouvet provided a panegyrical description of the Emperor and discussions of Chinese customs, Jesuits at court, and the Manchu conquest. Bouvet argued that the Kangxi Emperor was a ruler unparalleled in abilities and intellectual achievements and that the conversion of the Emperor and the Chinese to Christianity was possible. A major theme of the work was that the Kangxi Emperor intended to return China to its ancient flourishing position in the sciences and to bring about its renaissance. Bouvet’s work was part of a broader trend in contemporary European writing on China which asserted European superiority in the sciences.20 It was in this context that Bouvet described his instruction in anatomy. Bouvet emphasised to his readers that while he used the opportunity of the Emperor’s distemper to initiate lessons in anatomy, this development was a product of the Emperor’s ‘present disposition and particular inclinations’ and one that had not been planned by the Jesuits.21 Bouvet recorded progress in developing a treatise on anatomy and instructing the Emperor in Manchu—the same method used for mathematics and philosophy. The content of Bouvet’s lesson was drawn from Acade´mie anatomists including Joseph-Guichard Du Verney, a talented dissector of animal and human bodies and member of the Acade´mie since 1676.22 Du Verney was also affiliated with the Jardin du Roi and presided over popular anatomical demonstrations after 1682 as professor of anatomy. As he would be again during his instruction by Parrenin, the Kangxi Emperor was exposed to anatom- ical knowledge which was current and popular in contemporary Europe. The Emperor’s instruction in anatomy occurred at a time when modes of anatomical and physiological investigation (along with natural philosophy) were undergoing great change in Europe. Before experimental physiology, the disciplines of anatomy and 18Adas 1989, p. 69. 19Barnes 2005. While there were some exceptions, European observers from the late seventeenth century onwards consistently espoused this view. Interestingly, assertions about Chinese lack of accurate anatom- ical knowledge span a period when fundamental changes were taking place in the study of anatomy in Europe. 20Bouvet 1699, p. 61. Like his contemporaries, Bouvet praised Chinese attainments in government and ‘moral philosophy’ while heavily criticising achievements in fields of scientific knowledge such as astron- omy. Adas 1989, pp. 81–7. 21Bouvet 1699, p. 63. 22Bouvet 1699, p. 64. Guerrini 2003, p. 580; Watson 1939, p. 566. 26 Daniel Asen physiology divided inquiry into structures and functions of the body in various ways. Aca- demic inquiries into the body as well as therapeutics were informed by Galenic claims, despite the fact that these were being dismantled throughout the late seventeenth century.23 Metaphors of colonial geography informing late Renaissance attempts to know the body’s interior yielded to mechanistic conceptions of physiology.24 Neverthe- less, as the case of William Harvey and the circulation of the blood shows, experimental methods and older views of the body rooted in Aristotelian and Galenic conceptions of causality coexisted.25 The content of Bouvet’s anatomy instruction focused on function as well as structure. His description of the Emperor’s interest in anatomy as being about ‘knowledge of the structure of the human body, upon its various operations and most surprising motions’ suggests a physiological focus: ‘operations’ and ‘motions’ were keywords of physiological inquiry.26 Bouvet’s description of the measures which were necessary to ensure adequate instruction further reveals this physiological orientation: But because the Chinese, for all their great reputation of having for many years past, had the ablest physicians, have at present but a very confused knowledge in anatomy. . . . [W]e were forced to extend this treatise to a much larger bulk, than we at first intended, and to give a true idea, first of all the parts of the humane body in general, and to treat of each afterwards in particular; and to represent the several relations and connexions betwixt them, to give them a right idea of the whole occonomia animalis.27 Bouvet does not write more about the relationship between anatomy and physiology. Nevertheless, his description of the content of his instruction suggests the basic assump- tion held by those engaged in contemporary anatomical and physiological inquiry that knowledge of structure leads to knowledge about function.28 In France, as in Europe more broadly, physiological inquiry into the body was classified as a science.29 In this context, ‘science’ referred to a field of knowledge dealing with causes as opposed to an art, which pertained to applications.30 While, as Cunningham shows, some viewed anatomy as a manual art which supported the physiologist’s scientific reasoning into causes of structures accounted for by dissection, others classified anatomy as a science because of its concern with teleological implications (or final causes) of physical structure.31 That anatomy became a ‘bone of contention’ in European assessments of Chinese medicine reflects at least in part its cultural and epistemological significance in 23Brockliss 1987, p. 403. 24Sawday 1995, p. 22. 25Cunningham 1997, p. 183. 26Bouvet 1699, p. 63 27Animal oeconomy was another term for physiological concern with the functioning of the living body and, according to Cunningham, was interchangeable with ‘physiology’. Cunningham 2002, p. 641. 28Bynum 1973, p. 446. 29Brockliss 1987, p. 391. Cunningham 2002, p. 640. 30Brockliss 1987, p. 1. 31For more on anatomy as a branch of natural philosophy, see French 1994 and Cunningham 2003, p. 57. ‘Manchu Anatomy’: Anatomical Knowledge and the Jesuits 27 seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.32 As a field of inquiry which had grown in importance during the Renaissance, anatomy continued to see many important discoveries during this period. Regardless of whether anatomy was classified as an art or science, knowledge of structures of the body produced by dissection was considered to be certain. It was for this reason that data gained from anatomical investigation could support physiology—itself a theoretical foundation of academic medicine.33 Beyond the scope of its limited medical applications, anatomy was also certain enough to serve as evidence of a divine creator.34 Bouvet’s instruction was about more than simply teaching the Emperor the discoveries of particular anatomists. It was about teaching him a way of knowing the body which was more certain than that which the Chinese already possessed. It was for this reason that Bouvet wrote that he would provide the Emperor with a ‘true idea’ of the anatomical body and a ‘right idea’ of its physiology. Bouvet employed a number of images with textual explanations to convey this ‘true idea’ to the Emperor. After seeing 12 to 14 of these, the Emperor was ‘so extreamly [sic] pleased with them, that, to shew how much he was delighted with them, he ordered his chief painter, who is a great master of his art, to lay aside all other things, and to make it his whole business to draw these figures with all the exactness he could’.35 While Bouvet’s ‘propositions’ are not extant, images produced during Parrenin’s instruction have been preserved beautifully in existing copies of the ‘Manchu Anatomy’. In the final section, I will explore the ways that these images might have supported the Jesuits’ anatomical knowledge claims. Bouvet’s assumption that European anatomy represented certain knowledge funda- mentally informed the narrative of the Emperor’s instruction in his Portrait historique. His claim that Chinese ‘knowledge in anatomy’ was confused established ‘anatomy’— a body of knowledge which for him was grounded in epistemological and disciplinary contexts specific to Europe—as capable of accounting for knowledge of the body pro- duced under quite different circumstances in China. This is not to argue that the term ‘anatomy’ cannot apply to Chinese knowledge of the body, or that there exist no grounds for comparison. Rather, it is to point out that in the context of encounters of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, ‘anatomy’ became a durable field of comparison. It served as a particular way of establishing comparability between Chinese and European learning and, ultimately, China and Europe.36 Writing about Chinese knowledge of the body in this way made it knowable within Bouvet’s own tra- dition of learning, while implicating it in an assessment of value which found Chinese knowledge lacking. Similar questions surround Bouvet’s description of the Emperor’s initial interest in anatomy. It was the Emperor’s own ‘disposition and particular inclinations’ towards learn- ing about the ‘knowledge of the structure of the human body, upon its various ope