Quan Ti Chan Wei 全體闡微 [Anatomy descriptive and surgical in six volumes] 福州聖教醫舘, Foochow, 1881

Illustrated by two hundred and sixty-five plates (some hand colored), with a vocabulary of English and Chinese terms. Six volumes, orig wrappers, small 4to (27 × 18.5cm). 福州聖教醫舘 Foochow American Board Mission, 光緒七年, 1881.

Dauphin William Osgood 柯為良 / 柯為梁) was an American Board medical missionary who played a formative role in introducing Western medical education to Fuzhou. Trained at Bowdoin’s Medical School and New York University (M.D., 1869), he arrived in Fuzhou in 1870 and quickly became known for both his clinical work and his fluent command of Chinese and the local dialect. He founded the Foochow Medical Missionary Hospital and later supervised the construction of a new fifty-bed hospital in 1878. After treating tens of thousands of patients over a decade of service, Osgood’s health failed in 1880. The day before his death, he completed his translation of Quan Ti Chan Wei 全體闡微, the most significant scholarly work of his career.

Quan Ti Chan Wei is one of the earliest and most substantial Chinese renditions of Henry Gray’s landmark Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical. Issued in six volumes and printed at the Foochow American Board Mission Press, the work reflects the ambitious medical training program that had begun to take shape in Fuzhou missionary institutions during the late Qing period.

The set is distinguished above all by its 265 electrotype anatomical plates, adapted from Gray’s original illustrations. These images provide detailed visual instruction in skeletal, muscular, vascular, and nervous structures, and represent some of the finest anatomical engravings then available in China. Their clarity and scale made the work particularly practical for clinical teaching and surgical demonstration.

Equally significant is the integrated English–Chinese anatomical vocabulary appearing throughout the text and captions. This bilingual terminology laid important groundwork for the standardization of modern anatomical language in Chinese, influencing both mission medical schools and the earliest government medical colleges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Vol. I lacking the title label to the front wrapper; front wrapper with some wear and minor paper loss; copyright leaf with small losses; the English preface with slight chipping affecting a few characters. Vol. IV with small loss to the lower-left corner of the front wrapper and minor loss to the upper-left corner of the copyright leaf. Vol. VI lacking the front wrapper. Occasional light handling marks and scattered foxing as expected. Overall, a well-preserved set, the wrappers generally sound and the plates sharp and complete.

Please note: A 10% consumption tax will be added for orders shipped within Japan.