Chinese Medical Mancy: Medicine, Astrology, and Arts of Memory in Ming China

Marta Hanson, Associate Professor, History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Thursday, February 5, 4:30-6:00 P.M.

Location: Brower Commons A

Abstract: What knowledge in Ming China was considered important enough for ordinary people to memorize, how did they memorize it, and where was such memorized knowledge valorised, performed, and used? The Chinese phenomenon of hand mnemonics” (zhangjue 掌訣) works as a heuristic device to enter both the mind of the people who likely used them and the social world in which the knowledge summarized on the hand was valued enough to memorize. Medical prognosis and fate prediction were two of the most important arenas of knowledge in which memorization was not only highly valued but also pragmatic in daily life. After the fifteenth-century publishing boon, these bodily arts of memory bridged esoteric and vernacular domains of knowledge, particularly in the realms of astrological prediction and medical prognostication. Hand mnemonics in Ming almanacs and medical texts illustrate not only comparable techniques to memorize medical and mantic numerology but also important connections between medicine and astrology in late imperial China. In this talk, Professor Hanson will first present an overview of hand mnemonics in Chinese medicine and astrology, then turn to connections between medical & astrological practices in 16th-century almanacs & the early 17th-century physician Zhang Jiebin’s Illustrated Supplement to the Classified Canon (Leijing tuyi 類經圖翼1624).