Dr Churchill's Chinese Books
One of the more unusual collections to be found in the Dun’s Library is a small group of 18th and 19th century medical books written in Chinese. These 15 books are all printed and bound in the traditional Chinese manner, by woodblocks on double leaves of paper that are then sewn together. The collection only came to light a few years ago, during the major overhaul of the College’s library and proved to have once belonged to Dr. Fleetwood Churchill.
Fleetwood Churchill (1808-1878) was President of the College from 1867 to 1868, Master of the Rotunda Hospital and a most distinguished author of several classic texts on obstetrics and gynaecology. He formed a splendid library of over 600 books on his speciality which, on his retirement in 1875, he presented to the College where it is still one of the most valuable collections.
Following the discovery of these intriguing books, we were curious to know (a) what they were, and (b) how they came into Dr. Churchill’s possession.
To answer the first question, we called in assistance from the Librarian of the East Asian History of Science Library at Cambridge. He kindly examined photocopies of the title pages of seven of the books and was able to confirm that they were all traditional Chinese works on gynaecology and that some were of considerable rarity. A note attached to another of the books revealed that it was a translation into Chinese of Dr. Churchill’s classic On the Theory and Practice of Midwifery.
Manuscript notes on the covers of several of the books indicated that they had been sent to Churchill from Shanghai by a “W. L.”. The name “Dr. Lockhart” was found written on another book. A search on the Internet quickly revealed that William Lockhart (1811-1896) was a medical missionary, sent by the London Missionary Society in 1839 to China where he established the first Western hospital in Shanghai.
Lockhart was born in Liverpool and obtained his medical qualifications from the Royal College of Surgeons of England but he did part of his training at the Meath Hospital in Dublin. It is possible that he made the acquaintance of Churchill during this time. At any rate, Churchill was known to be very interested in missionary work. His obituary in the Daily Express states, “Among his friends he was known as an ardent supporter of foreign missions, the hospitable friend of missionaries, and better acquainted with the history and work of the Church abroad than almost any of his contemporaries”.
In China, Lockhart was concerned at the reliance the Chinese placed on traditional medicine. He decided that the best way to combat this would be to have several standard Western texts on various branches of medicine translated into Chinese. Among those books, he selected Churchill’s midwifery classic.
In his own autobiography, The Medical Missionary in China: A Narrative of 20 Years Experience, Lockhart wrote:
The last work which has been published is on “the Practice of Midwifery”, and is an important contribution. This practice is, in China, left entirely to women, who, in cases of difficulty, are utterly helpless. In this treatise, plain, simple and concise directions are given for the proper treatment, and illustrations are added, both of natural and difficult labour.[1]
The translations of these books were carried out by Benjamin Hobson (1816-1873), a colleague of Lockhart’s. This is confirmed by a manuscript note on the College’s copy.
A close friendship had clearly been established between Churchill and Lockhart, hence the regular gifts of these unusual books which, in at least some cases, must have been accompanied by translations. Two of these were submitted by Churchill to the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. The first, which was published in 1842, was entitled, “A Treatise on Midwifery. A new edition published in the fifth year of Taou Kwong (1825). Translated from the Chinese by W. Lockhart, Esq., M.D”.[2] A note at the end by Churchill states, “The preceding translation was sent to me by my friend, Dr. Lockhart, as the first fruits of his investigation into Chinese medical literature”. The following year saw the publication of “A Short Treatise on the Preservation of Infants by Inoculation. Translated from the Chinese by W. Lockhart, Esq., M.D., Macao”. Again Churchill notes, “The translation is from the pen of my friend, Dr. Lockhart”.[3]
Our contact with the East Asian History of Science Library has lead us to anticipate much interest in these books to come from scholars in the field of Chinese medical history. In the meantime, we are very pleased to know that we are preserving this evidence of a little known connection between Irish and traditional Chinese medicine in the early nineteenth century.
Author: Robert Mills
References:
1 Lockhart, William, The Medical Missionary in China: A Narrative of Twenty Years Experience (London, 1861), pp.159-160.
2 Dublin Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 20, 1842, pp.333-369.
3 Dublin Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 23, 1843, pp.41-54.
Images:
* Portrait of Fleetwood Churchill by Sir Thomas Alfred Jones, RCPI 40
* Photograph of William Lockhart
* Title page of the Chinese edition of On the Theory and Practice of Midwifery by Fleetwood Churchill, Dun's Library
* Illustrations from the Chinese edition of On the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, Dun's Library