15.3cm ¡Á21cm,

805 pages, 1995. 7. 

ISBN

7-5357-1656-3/H.51

Author, Nigel Wiseman.

Published by Hunan  Science Technology Press.

Foreword  by Chen Ke-Ji

A salient feature of Chinese medicine in the twentieth century is the development and renewal it has undergone through the contact between East and West and its gradual movement beyond its traditional boundaries in a process of continuing internationalization. The spread of acupuncture across the globe is an example of which everyone is familiar. Without a doubt, the  internationalization of Chinese medicine poses first and foremost the need for Chinese medical terminological study to overcome the cultural obstacles to understanding and communication and for the creation of dictionaries and the standardization of translation to blaze a trail and break new ground necessary for growth and development.

In China, warcraft, farming, medicine, and art are considered to be the ¡°  four quintessences of Chinese culture.¡± Chinese medicine, compared with the natural sciences, displays features unique to Oriental culture, is imprinted with the character of the Chinese people, and is steeped in solid simple tradition. The difficulty of translating Chinese medicine lies in how to keep its body and soul together in a rendering that is at once accurate, clear, and elegant. The difficulty for the translator lies in combining the essence of Oriental and Western culture and in understanding past and present knowledge. Nigel Wiseman is a scholar with a relish for difficulty. He is an Englishman who originally studied French, German, and Spanish and subsequently developed a partiality for the Chinese language, into which he has poured the greatest enthusiasm. From the study of Chinese, he entered the mysterious hall of Chinese medicine. He has devoted himself to Chinese medical translation for thirteen years, and has published a number of Chinese medical textbooks and glossaries in the United States and Taiwan. This English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine is his first publication of a reference work in mainland China.

   As to special features, this book has two. One is that it grasps the humane nature of Chinese medicine, and represents a translation system that shuns terms and translation methods that produce any profession-alistic flavor of modern medicine. It draws greatly on everyday speech and thereby accords with the principle observed in Chinese medicine of creating terms by the use of metaphor from everyday life. The other feature is that it tackles the multiple meanings of Chinese characters; it reveals the subtle relationships between terms and their contexts and in translation makes appropriate variations for different levels and different styles. Clearly, Nigel Wiseman sets himself high standards. Through thorough background investigation and meticulous faithful translation, he gets to the marrow of a foreign culture, savors it to the full, and captures the flavor in translation.

   Although it would be impossible for a every term in such a large dictionary created single-handedly to be entirely unassailable, Mr. Wiseman¡¯s academic undertaking in Chinese medicine is indubitably successful. Through happy self-denial, solitude, dedication, and perseverance, he has done the toil of a hundred men. All this deserves the sincere respect of my fellow-countrymen and myself.

                                                                Chen ke-ji

                                                                 Peking, January 1995

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    The Translation of Chinese Medical Terminology

    Commonly Used Characters of Chinese Medicine

    Legend

    Part I

    English-Chinese Dictionary

    Part II

    Chinese-English Dictionary

    Indexes

    Pinyin Index  

S troke Index