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Objects, Processes, and Female Infertility in Chinese Medicine
Author(s) -
Farquhar Judith
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
medical anthropology quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.855
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1548-1387
pISSN - 0745-5194
DOI - 10.1525/maq.1991.5.4.02a00040
Subject(s) - specialty , infertility , perception , traditional chinese medicine , relation (database) , psychology , field (mathematics) , alternative medicine , epistemology , medicine , family medicine , psychiatry , philosophy , pathology , pregnancy , biology , computer science , neuroscience , genetics , mathematics , database , pure mathematics
Focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of female infertility in traditional Chinese medicine's “women's specialty” ( fu ke ), I examine the relationship between anatomical objects or substances and physiological processes in Chinese medical analysis. After considering the significance of gender in medical perception, I cite field observations, textbook explanations, and published cases to illustrate a bias toward the temporal and the processual in Chinese medicine. Continuities between illness experiences and understandings of women's bodies are explored in relation to these clinical modes of knowing.