Chapter 33 Preface to the Chinese Translation of "Man and Medicine"

Preface to the Chinese Translation of "Man and Medicine" In 1933, Mr. Gu Lin (Roger S. Greene), acting principal of Peking Union Medical College, discussed with me about finding someone to translate Man and Medicine (Man and Medicine) by Dr. Henry S. Sigerist. ).It just so happened that Mr. Gu Qianji was willing to take on this job at that time, so I recommended him to do it.I originally hoped that the translation committee of China Foundation would be able to bear the cost of the translation. Unfortunately, the editorial committee had no spare capacity at that time, so Mr. Gu Lin personally borne the cost of the translation.

Mr. Gu Qianji studied agriculture. Although he has studied biology, physiology and anatomy, he is not an expert in medicine.When he translated this book, he had the help of several professors from Peking Union Medical College.Dr. Li Zong'en and Mr. Jiang Tiren proofread the full version of the translation, which gave the translator the most help. Because I love to read this book, and because Mr. Gu Lin is responsible for the translation fee independently, this book has the opportunity to be translated into Chinese, and I feel the friendship.So I volunteered to take on the responsibility of "running the text" of this book.After the book was translated, I felt that the translation was too blunt and inevitably had mistakes, so I decided to re-read it carefully.

But because I was too busy to do proofreading with all my strength, my proofreading delayed the printing of the Chinese translation of this book for a year and a half.This is what I am most ashamed of. (There are some transliterations of names of people and places in the book, which are sometimes inconsistent. I have corrected some of them, but I am afraid there are some omissions that have not been unified.) This year, American Professor G. Canby Robinson was a visiting professor at Peking Union Medical College. I happened to talk to him about the translation of this book. He was very happy to tell me that not only the author is his friend, but also the translator of the English version of the book. Ms. Boyce was his relative, and he was the one who encouraged her to translate the book.I was also very happy, so I asked him to write a short preface to this Chinese translation to introduce this book to Chinese readers.

The original English version has a preface written by the author, and an epistle written by Professor Weir Qu of Hepkin University in the United States. I asked my friend Mr. Guan Qitong to translate it (Mr. Robinson’s preface was translated by me). With these three prefaces, I could have said nothing.Just because I asked Mr. Gu Lin to write an article introducing this book to Chinese readers, so besides explaining the translation process of this book, I still add a few words of introduction. Professor Sigris said in his preface: Use general culture as a canvas, and draw a panorama of medicine on it—this is the plan of this book, and it can be said that it is an attempt that has never been done before.

This sentence can best write the special strengths of this book.This book is not only a history of medical development, but a history of medicine with the background of general cultural history. This book is certainly a most interesting little history of medicine.The author leads us to see the history of the development of knowledge of human body structure (anatomy) and knowledge of human body function (physiology); to see the history of evolution of human attitudes towards patients; to see the history of evolution of human ideas about diseases; The history of gradual evolution and progress; look at the history of gradual progress in the knowledge and technology of people diagnosing diseases, treating diseases, and preventing diseases.Every discipline, every technology, and every important theory has its own development process, which is its history.All these development processes together constitute the whole history of medicine.

But every new development cannot be isolated, it must have its cultural background, and it must be the product of that cultural background.The intellectual class who bury their heads in parallel prose, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, fu, or sit quietly in reasoning will never produce a Vesalius, let alone a Harvey, and still less a Pastois. -teur) or a Guo Huo (Koch).It goes without saying that Basto and Guo Huo were outstanding figures in the most advanced era of science in the nineteenth century.Both Fosalis and Harvey are the offspring of the European general culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and both are the offspring of the emerging medical university education—they both came out of the University of Padua in Italy.At that time, European university education had been developed for five hundred years.At that time, scientific research in Europe had already far surpassed those "spiritual civilizations" in the East that talked about life and tranquility.In fact, the backwardness of Eastern culture did not wait until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the level had already been determined, and the victory and defeat had already been decided: We don’t remember that the new astronomy brought by Matteo Ricci in the early seventeenth century had already spread in China. Is it invincible? ——The backwardness of our scientific culture has to be two thousand years earlier!To be honest, we Orientals have never had a cultural background in natural science.After we read this history of medicine written by Mr. Sigris, we cannot but feel that not only do we not have Fosalis, Harvey, Baster, and Guo Huo in the East; Hippocrates!Today, when we re-read the "Oath of Black Credes" (the seventh chapter of this book contains the full text), we cannot help but feel that the scientific spirit of European culture has a long history. The dark age of the human race has never been able to completely wipe out the legacy of the ancient Greek and Roman sages who studied nature and loved the truth!The medical tradition of Hecletes-Galen, like the astronomical tradition of Ptolemy, is, in spite of its errors, the most precious heritage of ancient science.Without Doromo, there would never have been the new astronomy of Keppler, Galileo, and Newton.Without Black Credes and Galen, there will never be new medicine after Forsalis and Harvey. ——Such scientific heritage is the cultural background we want to point out.

The biggest feature of the book "Man and Medicine" is that it makes us understand the historical and cultural background of each new theory or new technology.The healing techniques of Egypt and Babylon are certainly the background of ancient Greek medicine; but the martial spirit of the Greeks, the atmosphere of physical competition, the outlook on life that worships bodybuilding, etc., are also part of that cultural background.The ancient medical heritage of Greece and Rome is certainly the cultural background of the new medicine after the Renaissance; but the Christian church in the Middle Ages (which is hostile to science in many respects) paid attention to the sick, took care of the sick and isolated the unclean atmosphere, and the Renaissance was fond of antiquity and dared to The spirit of antiquity, the tendency of Baroque Art to focus on movement, the development of university education all over Europe, etc., are also part of the cultural background of this new medicine.

This kind of description of the historical development of various parts of medicine is what the author himself said "use general culture as a canvas, and draw a panorama of medicine on it".Such a history of medicine can best guide us to understand the whole meaning of the new medicine in this world.Such a history of medicine not only enables us to understand the development process of new medicine, but also allows us to look back and think about what the "Chinese medicine" of yin and yang and five elements in our family can occupy in this scientific medical history after reading this book. status.

This book is not only a popular medical history, but also the most interesting medical knowledge textbook.It is a general treatise on medicine written with a historical perspective.Its scope includes all of medicine—from anatomy to microanatomy, human histology, embryology, comparative anatomy, and site anatomy; from physiology to biochemistry, biophysics, and nervous system physiology; from Psychology refers to the psychological analysis of Freud's school, and even more to the "medical anthropology" that the author most hopes to develop; from diseases to various parts of pathology, to etiology, to anatomy, Etiology, when it comes to bacteriology and immunity, and the classification of diseases; from various treatments to various preventions, from internal medicine to surgery, from prevention to public health; Status refers to the moral ideals that modern doctors should have.

This is the scope of a general medical theory.Its general structure is as follows: first talk about people, second about patients, second about symptoms of disease, second about pathology, second about cause of disease, second about treatment and prevention of disease, and finally about doctors. Every outline and every small program is a historical narrative, which first describes people's erroneous views and methods in the earliest period, or not completely correct views and methods, and then describes how the new views and methods confirmed by science later came into being , how to prove, how to implement.For example, we can say that this is a general theory of medicine written in the historical narrative method.Each chapter narrates a piece of history, a story, and a very interesting historical story.

This book was originally written for junior medical students, but after it was published, it became a book that ordinary people love to read.It is no problem that every medical student should read this book, because from such a book, he can not only see the scope of his science, the scope, the beauty of the content, the difficulty of starting, and the martyrs. He is so great that he can also understand what a glorious place his future career will occupy in history and what a lofty mission he will have in society.Only this kind of historical perspective can broaden our minds and make us feel that we are not only people who live by our profession, but people who want to inherit the glorious legacy of countless great ancestors in history: we must not defile that legacy. Those of us "mortals" who don't study medicine should also read such a book.Medicine is related to our lives and the lives of those we love and respect.The ancients said that one who is a son of man must not know medicine.In fact, everyone must know the common sense of medicine.Especially we Chinese should read such a book.why?Because we really lack the common sense of new medicine.Many traditional beliefs and habits that we still retain to this day often make us not take good care of our bodies and pay attention to hygiene. Medicine that turns us against science.When we are in crisis, we may reluctantly enter a new hospital; however, our ignorance often makes us ignorant of doctors, nurses, and hospital rules.To be honest, most Chinese people are not fit to be patients yet!People who are not worthy of getting sick will be in danger once they get sick! So I solemnly introduce this "Man and Medicine" to ordinary Chinese readers.The strength of this book lies entirely in his historical narrative.We look at the wrong thinking of ancient people about a certain aspect of medicine that he said, and we can also understand the mistakes of our own ancestral thinking in that aspect.When we look at the evolution process of every aspect of Western medicine described by him, we can also understand how many centuries of progress the knowledge and technology we now respect as "Chinese medicine" can compare to others.When we look at the pathology, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of new medicine described by him, we can understand why new doctors use such troublesome procedures to diagnose, why diagnosis often takes so much time, and why doctors often cannot understand Determine what disease we are suffering from, why good doctors often refuse to give me medicine, why the rules of good hospitals are so strict, why the hospital does not allow my own relatives to come and nurse me, why nursing patients must be specially trained, why we cannot Seek medical treatment and take medicine casually.All in all, we must read this interesting and useful book because we want to learn how to be a patient. November 11, 1935 "Hu Shi Selected Works" translation volume