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A research project entitled "A History of Science and Civilisation in Korea" is planning to publish an English-language monograph series that endeavours to learn from established scholarship on the history of science by benefiting from its accomplishments and overcoming some of its shortcomings. This paper argues that the following four points are important for Korean historians of science to consider: (1) overcoming 'presentism'-- to avoid writing history from a contemporary standpoint and to justify present-day Korea, (2) adopting a cross-cultural approach--to avoid unjustified nationalistic and ethno-centric interpretations of historical data, (3) considering both elite traditions and folk traditions in Korea--to present a more balanced view on different traditions in Korea, and (4) adopting traditional Korean concepts and categories of knowledge, if necessary; that is, that when no Western concepts are suitable for reference but indigenous Korean concepts are, adopting traditional Korean concepts is preferable. For example, the adoption of p'ungsu (geomancy) as a category of the Korean body of scientific knowledge. In this paper these four points will be discussed with supporting evidence, and I believe that using these four points as guidelines will enhance the quality of new writings on the history of Korean science by overcoming some of the shortcomings of existing scholarship on the history of science, technology and medicine in Korea or elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the diary and other records of Liu Dapeng 劉大鵬 (1857-1942), a Shanxi village resident, to examine how people in rural China experienced and understood illness at an important time of transition for medical systems in China. It explains how Liu understood the illnesses that afflicted himself and members of his family in terms of providence. The healing methods he used ranged through self-medication with folk remedies and modern patent medicines; remedies provided by families friends and neighbours (including acupuncture and prescriptions based on classical Chinese medicine); remedies provided by gods and shamans; and prescriptions provided by professional doctors of Chinese medicine, whom Liu deeply distrusted. It also examines the arrival of Western medicine in Shanxi and argues that while this existed it was incorporated into networks of medicine provided by family and friends, rather than functioning as a separate institutional system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the life and medical activities of Chinese scholar, physician, and translator Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874-1952). Ding's career as an early adopter and translator of scientific medicine, and as a broker between western-trained physicians and reform-minded practitioners of Chinese medicine, affords rare insight into both the promise and the shortcomings of western-style medical modernization. In particular, Ding's experiences illustrate the ways in which illness and healing remained closely associated with moral virtue, even in the mind of this most committed modernizer. Through Ding, we can examine the growth of modern professions in China and the struggle to achieve any kind of professional monopoly on practice; the huge influence of Japan on China's modernization, and aspects of the relationship between culture and scientific change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]