Continuities in State–Society Interactions across Broad Spatio-temporal Realms: Gong Tingxian as Both an Author of Popular Medical Texts and an Imperial Medical Secretary in Early Modern China

Medical popularisation in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century China has been understood within the context of the state’s retreat from medicine. This article points to ongoing state–societal continuities and thus suggests that the process was more complicated than it had been assumed to be. Analyses with more limited spatial or temporal frames tend to underestimate the extent of continuities forged by societal figures such as Gong Tingxian (fl. 1581–1616), an imperial medical doctor and author of popular medical texts. Gong’s self-fashioning illustrates state–society connections that are also apparent in the reception of his work and in his later legacy. These continuities crossed political, linguistic and cultural lines as Gong’s popular texts were translated to Manchu and housed in a state medical library of the ensuing dynasty. Moreover, Gong’s texts were not only transmitted in China, but reached Japan and Korea, and even found a place within a European collection by the early eighteenth century.