• The Journal of Korean Medical History
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.33-44
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• 2017

Introduction to Medicine (Euihak-Ipmun), written by Lee Chun of the Ming Dynasty, is a comprehensive medical book brought to Joseon in the 1600s. It directly influenced many medical books written in the Joseon Dynasty of the same period, and became a major citation document of Dongui-Bogam. Introduction to Medicine became a major text for medical education in 1834 and has since been used as a clinical primer of Korean medicine. This article first examines the Joseon's era published version of Introduction to Medicine using documentation of the Diary of the Royal Secretariat (Seungjeongwon Ilgi), and a woodblock list. Based on these investigations, the reviewer examined the existing versions of the book, and focused on various characteristics for comparison. This article reveals facts which include : 1) All editions of Introduction to Medicine published at the present office are published by Jeolla-do provincial office (Jeolla-Gamyeong). 2) The first edition was published before 1636. 3) A finely produced version (Jeongganbon) was published around 1760. 4) The Jeongrijache-iron type publication was published around 1801.