“[A] hugely significant read for anyone interested in the practice and development of Chinese medicine during the last hundred years. . . . This book is the clearest and most complete explanation I have read of the various factors influencing the development of Chinese medicine in Republican, Maoist, Dengist, and contemporary China. If I were going to teach a class in the history of Chinese medicine, this book definitely would be assigned reading. Since its publication, there is no longer any excuse for much of the mythological thinking about Chinese medicine current in the West. . . . [F]or anyone interested in a mature, complex, but thoroughly human and humane discussion of Chinese medicine, this book is a true eye-opener.” — Bob Flaws , The Pulse of Alternative Medicine
“This is a work of great ambition, far transcending medicine. . . . This epistemology yields a rich harvest. . . . This book, by its frankness and its independence of philosophic fashion, will jolt some readers into examining their presuppositions. We can do with fewer pious reaffirmations of the conventional wisdom. . . . This is, to sum up, a book of the utmost historic, ethnographic, and practical importance.” — Nathan Sivin , China Review International
"[A] brilliant reflection on the dynamic complexity of contemporary Chinese medicine. . . . [O]ne of the best of a wave of new studies on Chinese medicine that are sure to change the field." — Philip S. Sho , Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
"[A]ll readers, but particularly practitioners, will be richly rewarded in terms of an increase in their personal understanding of who they are, what they represent in the continuum of Chinese medicine, and what internal beliefs and outside forces continue to guide and shape their practice and own use of both western and Chinese medicines." — Velia Wortman , Deutsche Zeitschrift für Akupunktur
"[N]uanced and thorough. . . . This practice-oriented history and ethnography does an excellent job of coping with subtlety and complexity and avoiding essentialisms and dichotomies. Yet more than being simply another critique of essentialism, Scheid's emphasis on fundamental plurality is a novel perspective and merits continuing attention. It is surely applicable to other medical systems . . . and may prove to be a useful approach to cultural practices outside the world of medicine and science." — Murphy Halliburton , American Anthropologist
"[T]he earlier chapters are brought to life by the clear and concise case studies that Scheid has provided. Scheid’s book could provide useful readings for medical anthropology students." — John Gill , Anthropology Review Database
"At least four distinct groups of readers will find this book valuable: preventive-health professionals, anthropologists, historians of science and technology, and public-policy professionals." — Wenjing Wan , China Review International
"There is no doubt that Scheid's work has altered the face of anthropological research into Chinese medicine." — Vivenne Lo , Medical History
"Volker Scheid offers a rich, clear, and detailed account of contemporary Chinese medicine as intrinsically pluralistic and dispersed, dynamic and local. . . . This volume brings theoretical approaches derived from science studies to bear on the anthropology of Chinese medicine and illustrates the benefits that can be derived from them. Perhaps even more importantly, its case studies will allow scholars access to the rich texture and complexity of medicine in China, and render them available for interpretation across disciplinary boundaries." — Roberta Bivins, Technology and Culture
“Volker Scheid reveals the dynamic context of Chinese medicine and its continuous process of encounter, interpretation, negotiation, and synthesis. This study’s depth of detail and breathtaking interdisciplinary scope provide a multidimensional understanding of Chinese medicine and the forces that nourish, constrain, and transform it. Any serious scholar or practitioner will want to read and reread this groundbreaking volume.” — Ted J. Kaptchuk, author of The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine
“Volker Scheid’s book is a seriously original work. One of its great strengths is Scheid’s refusal to see Chinese medicine as either unitary or centred. He insists on its plurality, with incursions of Western biomedicine as just more elements within an already multiple field of medical practices. The other great strength is Scheid’s refusal to see medicine as static. He brings to the fore the creative interplay between Chinese and Western traditions, the dynamism that can emerge in the intersection of radically disparate techniques, remedies, and conceptual schemes. Along the way, Scheid develops a fascinating epistemology and ontology of agency, human and nonhuman, that makes sense of the plurality and syntheses that he confronts us with. This is a path-breaking book—one that could be a model for future work in the history of medicine and in cultural studies at large.” — Andrew Pickering, University of Illinois