The Washing Away Of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine In Thirteenth-century China

by 宋慈 Song Ci, Brian E. McKnight (Editor)

English, Chinese (translation)

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History, True Crime, China, Crime, Historical

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Song Ci (Chinese: 宋慈; pinyin: Sòng Cí; Wade–Giles: Sung Tzʻu; 1186–1249) was a Chinese physician, judge, forensic medical scientist, anthropologist, and writer of the Southern Song dynasty. He is most well known for being the world's first forensic entomologist, having recorded his experience examining bodies for judicial cases in the Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified (Xi Yuan Ji Lu).

Reviews

[Irka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice insight in chinese forensic science. It's an easy read book, that I really liked :)

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at early forensic medicine in 13th century China with an incredibly evocative title, and as soon as I discovered the existence of this text, I knew I had to read it.

(Side note: this is a tricky book to get a hold of, and it looks like only New York City and Paris have it in their public libraries - all the more reason I'm grateful to work at a university with an expansive book collection!)

I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to expect from this, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at how accessible the book ended up being. There are certainly many repetitive portions of text, and there's a great deal of cultural context that is a bit lost on me (such as moxibustion, which comes up more than a few times in this text), but, there are also so many passages where you can't help but wonder at how little humanity has changed over the centuries. Government officials shirking their duties (I can't blame them, I don't think I'd really want to go on work trips to prod at decomposing bodies myself, but all the same!), the necessity of filling out proper paperwork, the many reasons why one person would murder another - strip away the finer details of time and place and technology and science, and at the bottom of it, you'll see that the world that Sung Tz'u lived in is really not that different from ours. It's just a world filled with a lot more death than your average person's - from fights, poison, hot nails inserted into skulls, murder via water well, the cold, the heat, despair, falls, tiger attacks, lightning strikes, sexual excess (the only good option in the book), Sung ably lists every method of "unnatural" death he can think of.

This book isn't for the faint of heart - the litany of descriptions of murder, suicide, and the various ways that the human body decays definitely can be a bit off-putting - but, of course, what else would you expect from a book about forensic science?

I also really appreciate the footnotes that McKnight includes with context about some of the more obscure portions of the text that a non-professional might not quite understand. I do wish there were more, though. I especially found myself wanting to know more about how modern forensic pathologists and doctors would have to say about Sung's science - which bits are incredibly insightful for their time period, which bits are close but not quite right, and which are just totally bonkers? For example, Sung seems really hung up on pouring vinegar over corpses to reveal wounds. He mentions it enough times that I began to wonder whether or not this method was effective. Sadly, this is not something that McKnight addresses in the translation, and it's not exactly something one can Google.

I'll also note that the language of the book comes off a little stilted, which I suspect is partially due to the age of the original text, but also partially due to the translation. It's worth noting here that there's a new translation by Frances Wong, which, from a quick glance online looks a lot smoother than McKnight's translation, and might be a good option for folks put off by some of the convoluted sentences in this edition.

Also as a final note, I found it incredibly charming that McKnight kept in many of the original Chinese characters in the text for other scholars to reference, and I was fascinated by the clearly hand-written nature of the characters. I wonder how the book was prepared for printing! Alas - it's yet another thing that isn't easy to Google.

I'll wrap up this review with a quote that gives a teeny tiny taste of the text (and which I couldn't help but interpret as Sung somewhat exasperatedly and pedantically telling government officials to avoid stating the obvious in the all-too-important filling out of paperwork): "In writing up inquests, do not put down, 'The skin was broken. Then blood flowed out,' since, in general, when the skin is broken, blood flows out. The record ought to read, 'The skin was slightly injured. There was a flow of blood.'" If this mix of ghoulish and fastidious doesn't appeal to you, then this is not the book for you. But if it does... you know what to add to your to-read list.

[Felicity Carlysle-Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into early forensic approaches some that form the basis of techniques used today.

[Charlotte R.S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The translation seems sound, though it’s difficult to know where mistakes are due to translation or due to the nature of the original Chinese writing. All of the text is thankfully in English, none of it in Latin as other editions had. The content is an interesting glimpse into the world of almost 1000 years ago, and it needed this translation, but it begs desperately for some kind of explanation or explanatory footnotes from a historian who specializes in the period.

[Dasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

So interesting to see forensics from so long ago.

Too bad its so horribly done, I cant imagine the amount of wrongful convictions because of their flawed methods. There was just wayyy to much body manipulation with vinegar and using invalid tells (ex. un/clenched hands) to determine whether death was natural or caused by someone. There was also so many sex differences listed that don't actually exist, ex. the claim that women don't have carpal bones and that our bones are black

[Pascale]

Just received yesterday. Can't wait to start :)