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Constance A. Cook reconstructs early approaches to illness and healing by reading excavated texts alongside the better-known medical traditions of ancient East Asia. Materials that were not transmitted through the usual literary canon reveal a wider range of practices and explanations.
The study follows evidence associated with Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han contexts and considers its relationship with later developments. It examines ideas about the origins of illness, the interpretation of symptoms and the means by which healing might be achieved. Ritual and magical practices appear alongside approaches that later readers might recognize as more directly medical.
Cook’s historical perspective places these activities within the worlds in which the texts were produced and used. The comparison between received writings and excavated evidence makes the book an introduction both to ancient healing traditions and to the ways newly recovered documents can change our understanding of the past.
Constance A. Cook. Medicine and Healing in Ancient East Asia: A View from Excavated Texts. Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108975834. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0; the unchanged original edition and its required notices are retained.