Currents,1600-2000.PDF

EASTM 23 (2005): 79-130 Restructuring the Field of Chinese Medicine: A Study of the Menghe and Ding Scholarly Currents, 1600-2000 Part 2 Volker Scheid [Volker Scheid studied Chinese medicine in the UK and China, holding post- graduate diplomas from the Universities of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacol- ogy in Beijing (1994) and Shanghai (2000). He studied social psychology at the University of Sussex (B.A. Hons, 1992), and medical anthropology at the Uni- versity of Cambridge (PhD, 1998). He completed a Wellcome Trust post- doctoral fellowship in the history of medicine at the School of Oriental and Afri- can Studies, London (1999-2002), and is currently a research fellow at the School of Integrated Health, University of Westminster, London, engaged in an interdisciplinary research project funded by the Department of Health that ex- amines the social construction and treatment of menopause by East Asian tradi- tional medicines. He maintains a Chinese medical practice in London specializ- ing in gynaecology and internal medicine.] * * * 6 The Fei: Keeping It (Almost) in the Family Of all the Menghe medical families the Fei were the most genteel, proud and scholarly—at least in the way they perceived and still perceive of themselves. From the 1880s onwards, the lineage as a functioning unit increasingly fell apart to be replaced by several family based branches that progressively segmented as time went on. The decline of Menghe as a transport hub once the railway be- tween Shanghai and Nanjing had been completed, coupled with increasingly fierce competition between physicians in the town itself, whose numbers conti