『임원경제지』·「인제지」의 편집 체재와 조선후기 의학 지식의 수용 양상 - 『동의보감』과의 비교를 중심으로 -

Abstract

ImwonGyeongjeji (林園經濟志) which was created by Seo Yu-gu (徐有榘) in the first half of the 19th century is a encyclopedia of practical use in rural life. It consists of 113 volumes, 16 fields, and 2.52 million total characters. Of these, the field of medicine comes 11th of the contents covering 28volumes and 1.1 million characters. Its name is Inje-ji (仁濟志). This paper examines the academic background of Seo Yu-gu and his life work briefly,and investigates the characteristics of medical knowledge of late Joseon period contained in the Imwon Gyeongjeji·Inje-ji Here, we made key comparisons especially with Dongui-bogam (東醫寶鑑), Joseon’s leading medical book. Of the pioneers of medical history studies of Joseon, a Japanese researcher Miki Sakae (三木榮) has made a negative evaluation to Inje-ji. But after concrete investigation we have come to conclude as follows. First, familial ancestors of Seo Yu-gu were engaged in the introduction of foreign-language books, so Seo Yu-gu as a officer of proof-reading and editing of the various books, also had a lot of knowledge on the medical books ever in history. On this background and experience, for over 36years from 1806 retirement from official position to his death, he had compiled and edited Imwon Gyeongjeji. Second, unlike Dongui-bogam which included improving health skill, Inje-ji focused on curing medicine readily accessible from the major population of that time. Its main features are as follows: i) prescriptions directly linked to the diseases and symptoms,ii) greatly increased medicinal knowledge especially on infectious diseases and trauma, iii) detailed index easy to look up for prescription and iv) his ‘own opinions’[an-seol] which can indicate relevant contents within the book and organically combines the whole knowledge in it. Third, “Inje-ji ”utilizing medical books in China and Korea even those of Japan, collected more massively almost all the medical knowledge, new illness, herbs of local area, private prescription. Meanwhile Inje-ji modified the errors of the older medical books like Dongui Bogam or Bencao Gangmu (本草綱目),expressed its own subjective views about controversial topics. In summary “Inje-ji ” can be the last general medical book which collected and edited almost all the medical knowledge of the period in the East Asia with its own editing format. In addition it is recognized that it pursued an evidence-based medicine and the practical medicine relieving the people,rather than medico-philosophical theories in oriental traditional medicine which was criticized by many critical intellectuals afterwards. Given the scrutiny, it seems that evaluation of the “Inje-ji ” by Miki Sakae should be revised by thorough investigations. We are just on the starting line of the Inje-ji research in earnest meaning,and expect this research would give more fruitful and deep perspective in the area of Korea history of medicine .