An ecumenical medicine yet to come: Reflections on needham on medicine

This essay provides an assessment of Joseph Needham’s account of Chinese medicine. Focusing on Needham’s thesis on the making of ecumenical science, it reviews the volume on medicine in Science and Civilisation in China and provides a close reading of Celestial Lancets: A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa, the first scholarly book in English dedicated to this topic. Noting an increase in work on the history of medicine that has shifted away from Needham’s positivist approach, the essay calls for a revival of his eclecticism in situating Chinese medicine as a living tradition, arguing that scholarship drawing on science and technology studies can facilitate the reorientation of Needham’s historical project.