Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2013

 

Painting on the Execution Ground: Cases of Human Dissection in China in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries                              

(Abstract)

 

Lu Minzhen

 

Records of human dissection in ancient China differ greatly both in style and content. But two cases of dissection in the Qingli and Chongning years of the Song dynasty are similar in terms of place (the execution ground), status of the people concerned (prefectural governor, painter, doctor), source of cadaver (executed criminal) and results (drawings of internal organs).The Song attitude towards the practice underwent a gradual change from moral condemnation to appreciation of the benefits to doctors. However, at the time neither scholars nor doctors drew any obvious conclusions from the two cases. They did not incorporate dissection into medicine more generally or extend the implications of experimentation and observation; still less did they make the practice of dissection a yardstick that could be used to assess the reliability of knowledge.