In early modern China, natural history and medicine were shifting along with the boundaries of the empire. Naturalists struggled to cope with a pharmacy's worth of new and unfamiliar substances, texts, and terms, as plants, animals, and the drugs made from them travelled into China across land and sea. One crucial aspect of this phenomenon was the early modern exchange between Islamic and Chinese medicine. The history of theriac illustrates the importance of the recipe for the naturalization of foreign objects in early modern Chinese medicine. Theriac was a widely sought-after and hotly debated product in early modern European pharmacology, and arrived into the Chinese medical canon via Arabic and Persian texts. The dialogue between language and material objects was critical to the Silk Road drug trade, and transliteration was ultimately a crucial technology used to translate drugs and texts about them in the early modern world.
Early Science and Medicine is a peer-reviewed international quarterly dedicated to the history of science, medicine and technology from the earliest times through to the end of the eighteenth century. The need to treat in a single journal all aspects of scientific activity and thought to the eighteenth century is due to two factors: to the continued importance of ancient sources throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period, and to the comparably low degree of specialization and the high degree of disciplinary interdependence characterizing the period before the professionalization of science. The journal, which limits itself to the Western, Byzantine and Arabic traditions, is particularly interested in emphasizing these elements of continuity and interconnectedness, and it encourages their diachronic study from a variety of viewpoints, including commented text editions and monographic studies of historical figures and scientific questions or practices. Early Science and Medicine, which contains an extended book review section, has recently also begun to dedicate special feature sections to emerging historiographic fields and methods of research.
BRILL, founded in 1683, is a publishing house with a strong international focus. BRILL is renowned for its publications in the following subject areas; Asian Studies, Ancient Near East & Egypt, Biblical Studies & Religious Studies, Classical Studies, Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Middle East & Islamic Studies. BRILL's mainly English language publications include book series, individual monographs and encyclopaedias as well as journals. Publications are increasingly becoming available in electronic format (CD-ROM and/or online editions).BRILL is proud to work with a broad range of scholars and authors and to serve its many customers throughout the world. Throughout its existence the company has been honored with many awards which recognise BRILL's contribution to science, publishing and international trade.
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Early Science and Medicine
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