Abstract
This study aims to discuss the establishment and development of the Qiantang Medical School(錢塘醫派) represented by Zhang Zhicong(張志聰) via focusing on an academy of Chinese medicine named L$\"{u}$shantang(侶山堂). The teaching method in L$\"{u}$shantang(侶山堂) displays a representative feature of the Qiantang Medical School(錢塘醫派), but the foundation of the method consisting of lectures and discussions had already been laid by Lu Zhiyi(盧之頤) during the Ming-Qing transition period. The tradition was succeeded by Zhong Xuelu(仲學輅) in the Hangyuan Medical Board(杭垣醫局) even after L$\"{u}$shantang(侶山堂) was burnt down during a war taken place under the Qianlong(乾隆) period. That the function and the role of the local Confucian academies, which had been focused on the discussion of Confucian classics and local issues, were changed to adopt the education of medicine which had been treated as a lesser subject may be interpreted as a gradual change in the social perception of medicine. The change in the function of the Confucian academies combined with the tendency in which the literati elites of the period left the Confucian philosophy for medicine presents one of many examples showing the changes occurred during the Ming-Qing transition period. The education of medicine provided by the Confucian academies is regarded historically significant in that it was offered by ordinary civilians rather than the government before the formal school education system was established in the modern period. This educational tradition played an important role in bridging the Chinese medicine in the medieval times with that in the modern period.
