清末百科全書中的醫學論述

The Ideas and Contents in the Section of Medicine of the 'Late Qing Encyclopedia'

晚清出現了一批以「時務」、「萬國政治藝術」等字樣命名的書籍。這些書的內容涵括西洋諸國國情、並介紹多種新式科學的知識，因其反映晚清知識界對於西方的認識，被當代的學者重視，特稱之為「清末百科全書」。本文皆在就其醫學部門，作初步的探討。從其編纂的方式看來，這些「清末百科全書」多以剪輯他書之方式成篇，往往淪於零碎知識的集結，難以看出編者對西學的認識。唯獨在醫學的部門，從其所附的書目，以及若干當中所載有關中西醫孰優孰劣的討論，卻可看出這些以介紹西學為宗旨的書籍，頗有贊成中醫優於西醫的言論，此乃其他學門所罕見。這顯示中國受啟蒙者係以批判態度接受西學，而之所以在醫學獨有所見，係因醫學的特殊性質所致，值得特別注意。 In the late Qing book market, there appeared a new breed of books titled with 'the current affairs' or 'politics and arts of the ten thousand countries'. These books are to introduce the conditions of foreign countries and the Western scientific knowledge. Since the contents might reflect the late Qing highbrows' attitude and recognitions toward the Western knowledge, the modem sinologists have paid attention to this breed of books and called them the 'Late Qing Encyclopedia'. This paper is to tentatively examine the medical sections of such books. From the methods of compilation, these books are mainly compiled by cutting and pasting the already existed books, therefore it is hard to grasp the compiler's understanding of the Western knowledge. However, only in the medical section, according to the attached bibliography and the included articles on comparing the Chinese and Western medicine, we could identify that some of the compilers agreed that the Chinese knowledge is better than the West. This is quite unusual among all sections introducing the Western sciences in the Late Qing Encyclopedia. The phenomena suggest that the Chinese people accepted the Western knowledge with a critical attitude. Besides, the fact that people had more opinions about medicine suggest its particularity, and thus worth noticing.