Abstract
In the history of Sino-European interactions, the Kangxi emperor’s (r. 1661–1722) interest in European medicine has long been known to historians.1 According to the Manchu official Tulishen’s (1667–1740) narrative of his mission to the Torguts during the period 1712–15, Tulishen met Matvei Petrovich Gagarin, Governor of Siberia, in Tobolsk on 24 August 1713. In discussion with Gagarin, Tulishen informed him about the old age of the only Russian Orthodox priest in Beijing, Kangxi’s approval for the dispatch of Russian Orthodox priests and their residence in Beijing, and the recruitment of doctors versed in external diseases from Russia. Gagarin replied that the priests in demand were being enlisted in Tobolsk, whereas suitable doctors were not available locally, but had been sought in Moscow.2 This event preceded the dispatch of doctors from Russia to serve at the royal court of Qing China. Of the eight doctors arriving in Beijing from Russia against this backdrop, the first was not Russian, but the Scottish surgeon Thomas Garvine (1690–1766) of Ayrshire.3 By 1713, Garvine worked in a hospital in St. Petersburg. As part of a Russian mission to China, led by the Swede Lorenz Lange, he left St. Petersburg in August 1715, and arrived in Beijing in November 1716. After more than half a year in Beijing, he left the capital city in June 1717, and reached Moscow in February 1718. Two months later, he departed from Moscow, and returned home via St. Petersburg.4 This mission’s journey received public attention with the publication of Lange’s account.5 Voltaire (1694–1778) briefly alluded to it in his history of Russia under Peter the Great, though he did not indicate Garvine’s name.6