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Historical Bibliography Updated: June 16, 2026

Recherches historiques sur la médecine des chinois.

Publication Details

Paris: Didot Jeune, 1813 CE.

The first Western history of Chinese medicine. Lepage, a pupil of Pierre Sue, was a friend and colleague of pioneer sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat. In his medical thesis Lepage presented an overview of what was then known of Chinese medicine, drawing on Jesuit letters and other 18th-century European narratives of travels in China. Lepage “advocated understanding the state of the medical sciences among other peoples” and “proposed the long-range task of studying Asian systems and the more immediate one of reviewing those of the Chinese” (L. Barnes, Needles, Herbs, Gods and Ghosts: China, Healing and the West to 1848, p. 237.)

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#14178
Permanent Linkhttps://hom-sveltekit.fly.dev/entry/16493
External URLrecherches-historiques-sur-la-mdecine-des-chinois

Geographic Context

Publication place: Paris