Body, Gender, and Disease

The Female Breast in Late Imperial Chinese Medicine

Bibliographic Data

ID15028012
AuthorsYi‐Li Wu (0000-0003-4375-0672, corresponding author), Yi-Li Wu
Year2011
Volume32
Issue1
Pages83-128
Publication date2011-06-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLate imperial China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0884-3236 • E-ISSN: 1086-3257
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/late.2011.0003
PMID22069795
OpenAlexW2091439520
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

This paper examines the diverse ways in which Chinese medical experts historically gendered breast disease as a female ailment. By comparing representations of the female breast from the Imperially-Compiled Golden Mirror of Medical Learning ( Yuzuan yizong jinjian , 1742) to those from earlier and contemporary texts, this paper analyzes how breast disease was alternately categorized as an ailment of childbearing and as a disease rooted in pathological female emotion. Medical awareness of breast disease in men did somewhat challenge these connections between womanhood and disease. Nevertheless, medical illustrations of women helped to reinforce the idea that breast disease was a characteristically female problem

Breast cancer · Breast disease · China · Disease · Medical education · Medical science · Pathological · Pathology · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Medicine · Psychology · Internal Medicine

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