In the early eighteenth century, Dominique Parennin, a French Jesuit missionary in China, wrote at the behest of the Emperor Kangxi a manuscript in the Manchu language which combined some of the theories of traditional Chinese medicine with Western medical concepts. One of the surviving manuscripts of this “Manchu Anatomy,” sent by Parennin to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1723, is now kept in the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. This work, “Ge ti ciowan lu bithe,” has recently been translated into modern Mongolian, affording an opportunity to research Parennin, his life and work, and the significance of the “Manchu Anatomy.”
DionisP. L’anatomie de l’homme suivant la circulation du sang, et les dernières découvertes, démontrées au Jardin-royal. L. d'Houry (Paris), 1698, Bibliothèque nationale de France, printed monograph online.
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ParenninD. Ge ti ciowan lu bithe (in 1723). Translated from Manchu: Buyantogtokh Gündüü, Gerelmaa Battogtogtokh, and Bold Sharav, edited by Shagdarsuren Dashjamts. Ulaanbaatar, 2024.
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ParenninD. Ge ti ciowan lu bithe. Manuscripts written in the Manchu. Volume 1 in the upper part, kept in the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, 1723.
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Thomae Bartholini Archiatri Danici. Anatome quartum renovata: non tantum ex Institutionibus b.m. parentis, Caspari Bartholini, sed etiam ex omnium cùm veterum, tum recentiorum observationibus, ad circulationem Harveianam, et vasa lymphatica directis: cum iconibus novis et indicibus. Ugduni: Sumpt. Marci & Joan. Henrici Huguetan, Francis A. 1684, Countway Library, Internet Archive.
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YoungTK. French Jesuits and the “Manchu anatomy” – how China missed the Vesalian revolution. Canadian Medical Association Journal1974; 111(6): 565–566.
