宋代 儒醫 연구 회고: 儒醫의 출현배경·개념 변화·전형 탐색

Abstract

The Song Dynasty (960–1279) was a period of medical advancement and the dissemination of medical knowledge. Unlike previous generations, literati officials(士大夫) of the Song Period did not scorn medicine and actually showed considerable interest in the subject. This environment led to the appearance of “scholar-physicians”(儒醫), who can be considered a unique “group” or “cultural phenomenon” of the Song Period. In this paper, I aim to introduce academic studies on scholar-physicians in the Song Period and examine their trends, thereby advancing understanding of the scholar-physicians found throughout East Asian medical history. Previous research on scholar-physicians of the Song Period has broadly shown three trends. First, studies on literati officials of the Song Dynasty and medicine discuss scholar-physicians. In these studies, we were able to observe the background to the appearance of scholar-physicians. Second, studies on the group of scholar-physician itself mostly investigate the concept of a “scholar-physician” within the Song Period, determine the boundaries of that group, and examine the effects of this phenomenon on the social standing of doctors. The third trend consists of studies that explore the archetypes of scholar-physician in the Song Period based on specific individuals who were active at the time. These studies mostly discuss how scholar-physicians constructed their own identity. Most research on scholar-physicians comes from Taiwan, China, and the US, and there has not been much research from Japan and Korea. If we look at research to date, various studies on the appearance and background of scholar-physicians was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, until this field was largely settled by the research of Chen Yuanpeng. Chen’s research was hugely important because of his discussion, based on prior studies, of the appearance of scholar-physicians, their background, and changes in the concept in the Northern and Southern Song. Since the 2000s, research on medical history of Song period has not treated the issue of scholar-physicians as a core topic. On the other hand, much interest has remained in the medical achievements of literati officials and their effects on the development of medicine. Numerous research results have been derived for these topics, and scholar-physicians are frequently mentioned within this research. Those studies that do exist on scholar-physicians show a different trend to previous research, which had tried to investigate the concept of scholar-physicians and their status, by instead exploring how scholar-physicians forged their own unique identity. The concept of scholar-physicians in the Song Period clearly developed under specific historical conditions, such as official’s medical policies and literati officials’ interest in medicine. It is not a concept that can be considered to have existed irrespective of time and place. Even when the scholar-physicians of the Ming and Qing Period, or other East Asia, are looked at, their own historical context needs to be taken into account. Rather than approach the scholar-physicians as a concrete concept defining a specific, exclusive group, it seems more important to understand the cultural significance of the term within its particular historical context.