| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Charlotte Furth. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History, 960–1665. (A Philip E. Lilienthal Book.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1999. Pp. xiv, 355. Cloth $45.00, paper $17.95.

This book is a remarkable and highly original work of scholarship. Charlotte Furth draws on insights from social history, anthropology, sociology, and studies of Chinese gender systems in her path-breaking study of the evolution of fuke, or medicine for women, a recognized speciality in Chinese medicine. She uses medical classics, practical handbooks, case histories, and belles-lettres to construct a sophisticated and detailed account of this complex subject covering the seven centuries from the Song dynasty to the end of the Ming. 1

Furth rehearses feminist debates about the relationship of gender and sex, reminding the reader that earlier feminist definitions of sex as biological difference and gender as cultural constructs have been challenged by those who argue that no such sharp distinction can be made, and that even the categories of male and female in a particular culture are "invented" in the course of cultural practice. Furth admits that as a cultural historian she finds these ideas attractive and that her approach is heavily influenced by them. In her narrative, the symbolic bodies under discussion inform us about the social world to which they belonged and its rituals, fashion, morality, and law. Yet, as she also points out, certain basic bodily functions, such as the ones with which her research is concerned—menstruation, conception, childbirth, and lactation—stand across cultures as materially grounded forms of human embodiment. By reminding us of this, she reminds us also of our common humanity. . . .

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