Sabine Wilms, Ph.D.

Research, Lectures, Translation

Research Interests

The focus of my research is the transformation of Chinese medicine between the early, medieval, and contemporary periods in China, and then to the US and Europe, specifically as it applies to the female body. I built my foundations in early Chinese philosophy and religion, in particular the narrower fields of cosmology, correlative thinking, and the natural sciences. On this basis, I directed my dissertation research towards medieval Chinese gynecology, which resulted in the translation and interpretation of the three gynecological scrolls of the Bei ji qian jin yao fang (comp. ca. 652 CE). This pivotal text is the earliest medical encyclopedia in China and contains both theoretical essays and a diverse array of clinical treatments that range from complex herbal prescriptions with dozens of ingredients to acupuncture treatments, physical manipulations, exorcistic spells, and physical, moral, and sexual cultivation. Its significance not only to historians of medicine and scholars of medieval Chinese society, but also to modern practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine in the West is steadily becoming more widely known. My book is the only major translation from this text into a Western language. In the future, I am planning to publish a series of academic, extensively annotated translations of the remainder of this important text, especially the general introduction which includes fascinating treatises on ethics, plant collection, and medicinal preparation, as well as the sections on physical cultivation and macrobiotic hygiene, i.e. dietetics, sexual cultivation, physical exercises, and meditation. In addition, my translation of the gynecological chapters is merely the first step in the exploration of such fascinating topics in medieval Chinese gynecology as the social status, training, and roles of a large variety of healers, the creation and transmission of textual knowledge, the interpretation of the female body and its health and illness, the family politics of healthcare, or the control of reproduction. It provides an unmediated window into Chinese society in the early medieval period, in particular into the role and status of women.

During my research, I have cooperated extensively with international scholars, in particular at the Academia Sinica’s Research Group for the History of Health and Healing in Taipei, Taiwan, and at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, U.K. In studying the history of Chinese medicine, a cross-cultural approach has proven to be of great value since research is far more advanced in the early Greek and medieval European context where the medical classics have long been available in solid scholarly translations. Given the preliminary state of research in medieval Chinese medicine, my work aims to produce accurate, historically contextualized translations according to the strictest philological standards. These will provide an essential stepping stone from which to launch research into the development of Chinese medicine from the foundations in the early classics to its professionalization, specialization, and stratification in the medieval and late imperial periods.

A second dimension of my research interests can be broadly defined as anthropological. My anthropological training has provided me with an approach to medieval Chinese medical texts that takes the phenomenological, social, and political dimensions of the experience of health and illness into consideration. Paying attention to the embodiment of culture-specific ideas about gender, the body, nature, or health and illness is essential for any interpretation of a medical text, whether from a geographically distant, a chronologically distant or a familiar Western culture. It is particularly relevant and rewarding when interpreting texts about the female body and its medical care. Research in medical texts offers concrete answers in topics such as menstruation-related practices, childbirth rituals, the significance of women’s tonifying supplements, or the role of female caregivers. Most of these topics have already been addressed in far greater detail in other cultures, and my own research provides an important corrective to often overly Eurocentric interpretations.

In addition, I have also been looking at the contemporary interpretation of so-called TCM (“traditional Chinese medicine”), both in China and the West. The interpretation and adaptation of ancient Chinese medical concepts and practices by a rapidly growing number of practitioners, teachers, and patients in the West with little or no background in the cultural context in which these concepts originated constitutes a goldmine of information for a researcher interested in the transmission and transformation of ideas from one culture and time to another. Increasing the cultural sensitivity among the community of Western practitioners of TCM has been the aim of much of my teaching and consulting activity in this context. Thus, publications that deepen and refine our awareness of the fundamental differences between the three (or more) paradigms of modern biomedical science, modern Chinese interpretations of TCM, and the classical sources from the distant past are sorely needed. In this context, I intend to produce translations of Chinese medical classics that are, on the one hand, sinologically sound, but on the other hand, also accessible to a larger audience of practitioners.

In conclusion, my work is characterized by a strong interdisciplinary outlook that combines the traditional skills of sinology with the theoretical interests and methodology of medical anthropology. In my research both on historical sources and contemporary medicine, I pay equal attention to the two angles of theory and practice in order to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of every-day reality that reflects the embodiment of culture as expressed in medicine.