Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

   No.3, 2017

The Identity, Reassignment and Political Culture of Medical Officers in the Mid-Ming Era

(Abstract)

Liu Xiaomeng

The identity of medical officers was consolidated in the mid-Ming era, when a trend toward professionalization gradually set them apart from the traditional image of the Confucian physician. Medical officers who had not passed the imperial examinations were increasingly looked down on by civil officers. But in the Chenghua and Hongzhi reigns, there was a trend for eunuchs to “submit orders for official appointments” that made it possible to become an official without passing the examinations. Medical officers were among the main beneficiaries of this practice; many were able to break through the restrictions on their status and move into the civil service, a shift that intensified the conflict between civil officials and medical officers. Although the medical officials thus promoted had been raised to higher positions, their powers were limited to medical administration. However, that did not prevent officials in the civil stream from treating these newly promoted medical professionals as heterodox. Limits on the ways one could become an official and the distinction between civil and technical officials were hotly debated. Investigation of how medical officers were promoted and the debates surrounding this topic in the Chenghua and Hongzhi reigns can give us an understanding of the institutionalization of medical officers’ selection in the Ming dynasty and the way their identity and image were shaped by the political culture of the bureaucracy.