Contenu de l'article

Titre Les médecins laïques contre l'exorcisme sous les Ming : la disparition de l'enseignement de la thérapeutique rituelle dans le cursus de l'Institut impérial de médecine
Auteur Fang Ling
Mir@bel Revue Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident
Numéro no 24, 2002 L'anticléricalisme en Chine
Rubrique / Thématique
I. Anti-religion et anticléricalisme
Page 31-45
Résumé anglais Secular physicians against ritualistic medicine (exorcism) under the Ming. The disappearance of therapeutic rituals from the curriculum of the Imperial Institute of Medicine Therapeutic ritual has long since formed an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine. Elevated to the level of a medical specialisation under the Sui (581-618), it was included as such in the courses offered by the Imperial Institute of Medicine. Its existence in the institute's curriculum is cited in the official histories up to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Its disappearance occurred no later than 1570. The treatises of the secular Ming physicians shed light on the reasons that subtend not only its disappearance but also the discrete, almost stealthy, procedure of its suppression. Since this medico-religious tradition is acknowledged by the classic Huangdi neijing, secular physicians have never been able to contest openly its nominal presence as a form of official medicine, but remain in general hostile to its practice. The physicians' attitude towards exorcists can be interpreted as anticlerical since it is based on ideological rather than doctrinal reasons. It furthermore invokes a fundamentalist ideal (the imagined decay of the exorcists' authority) and implied conflicts about actual social power.
Source : Éditeur (via Persée)
Article en ligne http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/oroc_0754-5010_2002_num_24_24_1148