Book

Dr. Paul Bevan, March 2013, Collection Review.
This is another of John Bowring’s donations to the RAMM and carries a printed dedication to him from the book’s author, David Jerome MacGowan, which reads:

“This Attempt to make the Chinese Acquainted with the Principals of the ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, is dedicated with much esteem to one of their best friends: J. BOWRING esq. L.L.D. H.B.M. Consul, Canton
D.J.M.

As stated by MacGowan in an introductory note, the main purpose of the publication of this volume was “to communicate to the Chinese the principles of the ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH”. However in order to do this the author felt that a general background on related subjects was necessary for a more thorough understanding. This account of the Electric Telegraph was itself based on a French original written by the Catholic Priest François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno (1804-1884): Traite de Telegraphie Electrique renfermant sons Histoire, sa Theorie et la description des appareils par Mon. l’Abbe Maigno [sic] of 1849.
The content of MacGowan’s book is as follows:
Part one: Preface
Part two: “Electric Glass Vessels” [Glass Devices for the Storing of Electricity].This includes information on electrotherapy.
Part three: “Electric Five Metals vessels” [Metallic Devices for the Transmitting of Electricity]
Part four: “On the qi of Magnets” [On Magnetism]
Part Five: On Electromagnetism
Part six: On the Electric Telegraph
An appendix in three parts follows:
• An Account of Religious Festivals in the Western calendar.
• The Observance of the Sabbath: Every Sunday in the calendar displayed here is marked as a day of rest.
• Daoguang ershijiu nian yangshang zhi Zhongguo ge kou chuan shu
道光二十九年洋商至中國各口船數
The Number of Foreign Trading Vessels Visiting Each Port in China during the 29th Year of the Reign of the Daoguang Emperor [equivalent to 1849-1850 in the Western calendar].

The English frontispiece to the book reads:
“Philosophical Almanac” in Chinese by D. J. MacGowan
48th year of the 75th cycle of sixty or 4488 being the 1st year of the reign of H.I.M Hien Fung.
Dated Ningpo [Ningbo in Zhejiang Province] 1851.

The Chinese frontispiece provides the same information together with some additional details such as the addresses of two churches etc.:

Centre:
Bowu tongshu
博物通書
Almanac of the Natural Sciences
Top right:
Xianfeng yuan nian zhengyue juan
咸豐元年正月鐫
Engraved in the first month of the first year of the reign of the Xianfeng emperor (1850-51).
Top left:
Yesu jiangshi yiqian babai wushiyi nian
耶穌降世一千八百五十一年
The year of our Lord 1851 [More literally “The One Thousand and Fifty-second Year of the Descent to Earth of Jesus”]
Bottom left:
Xiyishi Ma Gaowen yishu
西醫士瑪高溫譯述
Translated by the Western Physician Ma Gaowen [MacGowan]
Bottom right:
Zhenshen tang zai Ningcheng ximen hongqiao tou
真神堂在寧城西門虹橋頭
The Church of the True God is [situated] at the head of the Hongqiao Bridge by the Western Gate in the city of Ningbo.
Yesu huitang zai dongmen nei dajie shang
耶穌會堂在東門内大街上
The Jesus Meeting House [Church] is [situated] within the Eastern gate on the main street.

Printed on the inside cover (in the same place as the advertisement in Hobson’s publication mentioned above) is an interesting declaration by MacGowan, written in the antiquated Chinese Xiaozhuan (small seal script). This declaration offers therapy to all those who are sincere in their desire to be cured of opium addiction.

David Jerome MacGowan (1815-1893) of the American Baptist Union arrived in Ningbo in 1843 and established a hospital there under the auspices of the Medical Missionary Society.

David Wright, in his book Translating Science, suggests that the content of MacGowan’s publication is “scientifically very thin: it presents a series of electrical devices, and describes the phenomena they display, with little attempt to explain what is going on.” According to Wright some sections seem to have been copied by Benjamin Hobson for inclusion in his Bowu xinbian [see information on Hobson above].

MacGowan worked as a physician in Shanghai and in the Jiangnan Arsenal as a translator. He published several books, including Rishi tushuo 日蝕圖説 (Theories on Eclipses Illustrated) in 1852 and a periodical Zhongwai xinbao 中外新報 (“Chinese and Foreign Gazette”) which published scientific and religious content.

An extract from the preface of the Philosophical Almanac reads as follows:
The matters pertaining to natural philosophy do not concern the holy religion of Jesus. [It is because] I profess the Way of Our Saviour Jesus that I have crossed over 50 thousand li of the ocean to come here, to preach to the people in order to [make Christ] manifest to the world and to save souls.
[Yet] observing that Chinese scholars have widely investigated the Classics and freshly probed the Principle of Things, I therefore append the discussion here, merely so that the reader can see the wonders of Creation. He who thinks that the Way of Jesus lies here is gravely mistaken……….Nowadays people do not carefully investigate [this view] [referring to a passage from the Book of Changes] and falsely believe that the Myriad Things of Heaven and Earth both originated in Chaos: then, may I ask, whence did Chaos itself originate? This theory has no basis. It s also said that Pangu divided Heaven from Earth. Those who speak [of] Pangu only speak [of] ‘Extreme Antiquity’ or ‘High Antiquity’: whose account is it? We must seek the person [whose account it is], in order to establish its veracity. To sum up, this is a spiritual matter, which mortal men do not have the capacity to fathom or comprehend, and which God shows us by revelation.

A copy of this rare book also exists in the Wellcome Library, London. It is also available as an on-line digital resource from the National Library of Australia (NLA). The original copy of the book in the collection of the NLA is bound together with two other titles Quanti xinlun (see above) and Tianwen lüelun天文略論 (Outline of Astronomical Theory), both written by Benjamin Hobson.
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1873768

For more information on the subject of Western science in China see:
Wright, David: Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840-1900. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

The above books will certainly prove to be a hugely valuable resource to students of the history of western science and medicine in China and will also appeal to general visitors to the museum due to their strong visual impact. It is recommended that further research be carried out on these books and other related volumes in the RAMM collection in order that their potential might be maximized as important rare documents of nineteenth-century missionary practice.